Style and substance

Hire the best people
As Shami’s business grew, he didn’t have a hard time letting go, because he knew he hired the right people.
While it may have been a lot of work, Shami had the advantage of interviewing all of his employees in the beginning of the company’s existence.
“I didn’t come to a company that already had 2,000 people,” he says. “I came to a company with no employees.”
Your first step in hiring should be letting human resources do its job and remove the candidates who don’t fit a position or don’t have the experience. Shami advises to look for good experience and notes that you get what you pay for when hiring. But, he also cautions to avoid only hiring the person with the best experience. If you feel someone has the passion and drive to succeed in your company, take a chance on him or her.
“We hire people with no experience,” he says. “You can tell someone is motivated, eager to work, eager to learn. I came to this business with no experience myself — I learned on the job, but I was willing to learn.”
You can find the real person in an interview if you are relaxed and open with the candidate, resulting in a more comfortable situation for both of you.
“Once people feel at ease with you and if you talk face to face with people and not down to people, they open their heart and you get their best in the first interview,” he says.
By hiring the best people, you also set yourself up to have a nice farm system to develop talent and move them up through the ranks. Shami is again looking for motivation in the people he promotes, but he also wants people with optimism and who communicate effectively with the entire organization.
“Lots of those people did not come into their position,” he says. “They grew into that position. We try to hire from within (for) management. That makes our lives much easier when a supervisor (becomes) a director to become a vice president and president.”
Be aware you may lose a talented employee if you promote him or her and it doesn’t work out. Some people may excel in one position but not in another. In one instance, Shami gave a recently promoted vice president about a year to adjust to a new role.
“Normally, what happens, and it happened not too long ago with a vice president, that it becomes over their head,” he says. “So, I reduced their job back and sometimes they feel insulted and they quit.”
These days, Shami takes more of a backseat approach to hiring. He’s comfortable letting the team he put in place decide who is a good fit for the company. Shami will meet with candidates for senior positions, such as supervisors and directors, at the end of the process to get a feel of what the person is like and to fill the candidate in on how he views the company. Those talks can be as short as five minutes and normally don’t exceed 30 minutes.
“I just like to interview them to see their personality and just talk to them,” he says. “It’s a gut feeling. Is this a person who is really going to be a team member or who is not? Sometimes you are right; sometimes you are wrong.”