According to a Gallup poll, only 33% of employees consider themselves to be engaged. How much are you paying in salary to employees that are not giving you their best?

Topgrading your staff can be a great way to increase your productivity and create a well-functioning workplace. Smaller companies often neglect the practice because of a lack of resources and education on topgrading. Here, we go over topgrading and offer some easy ways to implement the system. 

What is topgrading?

Topgrading is a method of analyzing your current employees that was created by Bradford D. Smart. In its simplest form, topgrading is a practice of improving your current workforce. Going over each employee, the employer will ask themself, “Would I hire this person today for their current job, knowing what I know now?” 

Topgrading is a methodology that uses hiring, development, and promotion strategies to build and maintain high-performance staff. This strategy focuses on identifying, hiring, promoting, and retaining high performers at every salary level. It also finds employees that aren’t team players or don’t work well with other employees. 

Topgrading helps you revamp your hiring processes, so you can hire better employees next time and cut unnecessary costs immediately. 

How to get started implementing topgrading

When starting topgrading, you need a solid strategy for implementation. 

Starting at the beginning of a year – especially as we face a potential recession, or financial slowdown – is a good time to start topgrading. 

Some of the elements of topgrading that make it particularly successful are as follows: 

• Transparency
  All employees should understand what is happening. The aim is not necessarily to scare employees but to help them see that they contribute individually to the organization’s success. 
• Timing
  Set up a time to meet with employees: manager to employee. This allows everybody the opportunity to bring their strengths to the discussion and can provide each side with the opportunity to offer suggestions. 
• Training
  Being certain that those that are in a hiring role know how to hire is imperative. It’s one of the reasons that staffing companies are so successful. We understand the best ways to hire, the skills testing to perform, and the timing of any trial periods or onboarding. 

Making it part of the culture can make the process easier for you and your employees. 

How to improve your hiring process

Making your hiring process more robust can be one of the best ways to find, hire, and retain the best talent. Before making a job listing, create a document that has all the necessary skills and traits you want your new hire to have. Continue to visit this document throughout the process of hiring to ensure you find a candidate that meets all your requirements. When recruiting a candidate, ensure the job tasks are clear, and the company culture is outlined.

Never promote anyone to a managerial role without ensuring they know how to hire. Working with a staffing firm can clean up job postings and speed up the process of sourcing the right candidate, but it is vital that the onsite manager interviews the candidate to ensure a good communication and culture fit. This will improve retention as the job becomes clearer and eliminates any complacency on the part of the manager.

If you have not worked with a staffing firm that understands topgrading, you need to check out Spectra360. Our recruiters are 100% focused on finding the best fit for your company, your culture, the team, and the role. We are not like other firms that fill the same empty spots over and over without concern for retention or how that kills productivity.

If you’d like to speak with a Client Acquisition Specialist, visit https://www.spectra360.com/schedule to get started.