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Employers

Recruiting leaders and managers

Recruiting leaders and managers requires a very different focus from recruiting staff and lower level management positions. Getting it wrong at this level has cost companies their business. Consequently, at executive and senior manager levels you must focus first and foremost on what the business needs and then, secondarily, on how and where you find the people with the skills and experience that demonstrates they can deliver on what you need.

The section below covers the real costs of employing the wrong person and shares my financial perspective of the costs to your business of getting the wrong person. It may startle you as it should. The section on estimating the ROI of using executive coaches will give you a CPA’s perspective that executive coaching organizations won’t want to talk about.

The Resource Library for Employers link below will guide you to information you can adapt to your own organization. It will help you to take better control of the recruitment and interview processes whether you will be doing it internally or, especially, if you will be engaging external executive recruiters.

Go to the Resource Library to find helpful guidelines in the following areas:

  • How to take better control of the entire recruitment process.
  • How to structure candidate interviews.
  • Suggested interview questions, annotated with helpful comments on the purpose of the question and how to recognize and deal with answers that are disingenuous.
  • How to objectively evaluate candidates, regardless of whether they are current or prospective employees.
  • Guidelines on managing relationships with external executive recruiters that will improve their ability to find the best candidates you need.

Real costs of employing the wrong person

Estimates of the costs of employing the wrong person typically consider only the direct costs, such as compensation, recruiting costs, etc., because they are easily measurable. The most significant costs to your organization, however, are the indirect costs and they are the ones that should cause you the most concern.
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Estimating coaching ROI: A CPA’s Perspective

You may have read or heard about research studies from executive coaches that show impressive results of using executive coaches. You might have heard the reference to coaching ROI (the financial benefits of coaching compared to its cost). Research covering a number of selected companies does suggest that employee coaching can have a positive impact on a company’s bottom line.

Unfortunately, the statistics tend to be biased because they do not include companies that had engaged executive coaches and were either unable to make reasonable estimates of ROI or they had subsequently gone out of business.

Before you enter into a coaching relationship, you should be clear about what you want the coaching relationship to accomplish and know how you can assess the results. Here are some examples of executive coaching objectives where you may be very pleased with the coaching results but you may encounter difficulty in estimating coaching ROI:

  • Achieving a challenging objective or goal that would be in the company’s best interests.
  • Overcoming an issue impairing a person’s effectiveness or limiting their career progression.
  • Improving leadership or management effectiveness when interacting with peers or subordinates.
  • Helping a team or teams to work together more effectively.

We offer some helpful suggestions on how you can increase the effectiveness of working with an executive coach so you will be able to justify the cost.
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Outplacement

Outplacement is a process of helping departing employees to expedite job and career changes. There are professional service firms that specialize in providing outplacement services to companies that have large numbers of people leaving. Executive career coaches often work for these companies or they work as individual practitioners. Outplacement services range from one-on-one career coaching to group sessions structured by employee level. Outplacement services are usually paid by employers and they can be a lifesaver for their departing employees.

Employers that have limited financial resources may find that engaging external outplacement service firms will not be an option. When this is the case, companies can purchase a comprehensive self-help career change book and give one to each departing employee. 12 Steps to a New Career is an example of a comprehensive guide that covers everything leaders and managers need to know and do to successfully make a career change.
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Resource library for Employers

Visit the Resource Library for Employers for resources that will help to improve the results when you are recruiting and interviewing leaders and managers for new or existing positions.

Where to get additional support

If you would like to explore how our experience and resources can help you take better control over your recruiting and interviewing processes, click here.