Hey everyone. Welcome to another #ThoughtFULLThursday. My name is Casey Hasten. I am an Executive Recruiter, Director of Recruiting for VIP and all around hiring guru.
I want to chat with you today a little bit more about building a better team. Today we are going to talk about a concept we use called Pay it Forward. Sounds pretty simple. I know you have probably all seen the movie about paying it forward and we take this principle very seriously.
Let me set the stage for why this is a huge concept with our company. Being in a sales environment, we are one hundred percent commission. Many times this type of environment can be very cutthroat because people are working “closest to the dollar” which means they are always trying to get that next dollar. What I am trying to encourage in this team and how I want my sales team to be different is I want to encourage more collaboration, where work together and really look out for our fellow teammates.
If, for example, you have a candidate I think is a good match for somebody else’s job, I want to be able to tell you, call your candidate for this job and that way you make money. I may not make money this time, but you are going to remember this and hopefully, you are going to help me the next time you see a candidate I did not match properly.
The Pay it Forward Concept is along those same lines, but we take it a little bit further. When I first hired my first recruiter, I spent a lot of time with her downloading information, teaching and training her on how to recruit and build relationships. When we hired our second recruiter, one of the things she did that just really shocked me was she went and pulled a report of candidates for the new person to call for two weeks.
Normally that is something recruiters do on their own. They have to source their own candidates. She took this list of candidates she could have called and gave it to the new person. She simply said I pulled this list to help you in your first two weeks. I was shocked and thought this is exactly the team environment I am trying to create. (Here’s a hint on building a better team…catch people doing the right thing and acknowledge immediately!)
We talked about it as a team and we decided this was a really good idea moving forward. Now as we hire new recruiters, the last recruiter hired and sometimes the recruiter even before them is asked to do something for the new recruiter that may or may not cost them money. It is definitely going to cost them a little bit of time for the new person.
This does several things. First of all, it really increases the collaboration because we are doing something for someone else. We are giving without expectation of receiving in return. (See my blog on giving first here.)
If you do things for other people without expecting anything in return, that comes back to you. If you expect quid pro quo, the effect is not the same. We always want to do it with good intentions.
Now we see collaboration building within the team. As a result, the team is starting to trust each other, which if you have ever worked in a sales environment, this is not the norm. We are always paying it forward and the team loves to give. Each person has their own strengths and we discover those as we go through the training process.
I have one recruiter who is a guru on LinkedIn. (She can find anyone…so watch out!) She teaches her strategies on how she sources for those candidates for very specific roles. I have another recruiter who has become excellent at interviewing and he will teach them his interview process. I am overseeing the processes at all times, but this promotes buy-in of the entire team. I love to see them working together, which is ultimately at the end of the day, how I want my sales team to function.
I hope this was helpful for you today. How can you implement the Pay it Forward concept within your teams? Let me know if you have additional questions regarding this concept. Thanks for joining me for another #ThoughtFULLThursday and I cannot wait to see you next week!
