BC Business
How to hire star employees.
“If you ask me what my No. 1 challenge is, it’s still staffing,” says Kevin McCrum, general manager of Aldergrove-based Cintas Canada. “It’s becoming harder and harder to find great people.” When a company such as Cintas, a uniform supplier to organizations like Terasen Gas and IGA, has trouble finding the right person for a job, that’s saying something. The company is a well-recognized great place to work and an employer with a competitive benefits package. “A positive work environment is more important than ever,” McCrum says. “We want to create an environment where great people want to work and where talented people want to come.” That means a hiring process that is involved and personal. Getting a job at Cintas begins with an online application. A service sales rep job opening last June was inundated with 200 applications over one weekend. So, going online with a computer to keep track of resumes and job applications was the only way to deal with all the applicants fairly. “If a job comes up, the computer can go ahead and find all the people who applied for that job in the last four or five months and let them know,” says Adrienne Twibill, a manager at Cintas. That said, McCrum recruited 90 per cent of company’s 147 employees through word of mouth. “Great people hang out with other great people.” Even with a referral, and despite the stiff competition for talent, Cintas prefers to play it safe when hiring. The interview process involves five separate interviews that cull applicants along the way (more than 7,500 people applied for 45 jobs last year.) The first interview is an hour-long screening session for Cintas and the applicant conducted by Twibill. The second is another hour-long meeting with the relevant manager. The next interview is a day-long work experience to see if the applicant will fit in with the team, and the last two are with the department head and McCrum, respectively. “We make sure it’s not the same interview three or four times,” McCrum says. “Each interview is focused around different skill sets.” Cintas looks for five main attributes: a track record of success, a shared competitive spirit, an understanding of team and trust nd respect for individuals. And they conduct two reference checks in which Twibill looks for assurance that the applicant was truthful, and tries to get more insight into their character. “We want a co-worker who can tell us about the applicant’s work ethic and how they adapted to new situations.” The entire process effectively eliminates people who wouldn’t have worked in the Cintas environment, and some who might have been great. But when the applicant becomes a Cintas ‘partner’ (not employee), McCrum can be confident in the choice. “[The five interviews] allow us to do our due diligence, so we can openly trust the partner the day they start, instead of waiting two or three months to get to know them,” McCrum says. “We already know they have a high probability of success. We won’t wait to invest in them, we can train them from day one.” McCrum can come to work every day knowing the ‘new guy’ will improve the office environment, the company’s success and, most importantly, will make a good boss one day. “You have to hire people you would want as a boss,” he says, “because you never know who will be your boss tomorrow.”