Overrides – Good idea or bad?

Business has improved and many of you are beginning to re-staff and reconfigure. Hopefully you have learned the importance of NOT just “FILLING A DESK,” and have developed a hiring process to identify the top talent your firm needs to achieve future goals and growth.

If you are like the majority of the owners and managers in our profession, you are a “working manager or owner.” You must now make the decision to spread yourself even “thinner” or delegate the training and supervision of newly hired recruiters to someone else in your office. Before making this critical decision, ask yourself this question: “Is this the best use of my time?” If the answer is NO, you need to delegate and compensate someone else to handle this responsibility.

If you promote someone into the role of team leader or department manager you must address their “WIIFM.” It has been my belief for years that most recruiters are “social workers who like money!” One of the motivators for the type of individuals is CASH.

You can make this a WIN/WIN. Your team leader will become motivated to train, groom and mentor others, and they have a vested interest in the success of this person. People do things for their own reasons, not yours. An override on production is that type of motivation.

Often, top producers are promoted into management roles, because of their proven level of success. Top production does not make someone a good manager and, often, this type of individual is too selfish to share their valuable time mentoring or managing. Identify the individuals on your sales team who are team players, natural teachers, “givers” vs. “takers” who would enjoy the complexities of management and mentoring.

You must thoroughly think out your decision to pay an override, because it is difficult to “take something away” that you have offered. You don’t want to lose a good producer in the process!

Following are some of the most common questions asked about overrides:
Q. When should they be implemented?
A. When it is NOT THE BEST USE OF YOUR TIME to continue in this role and you have someone on your staff who can effectively handle this responsibility.

Q. How does this impact your supervisor’s personal production?
A. If you have a structured training program and systems in place, it will not have a major impact on your supervisor’s production. If you don’t, and put the total responsibility for a new hire on the supervisor, it could drastically reduce their production.

Q.What is the threshold when overrides should kick in?
A. This depends on your margin of “profit.” You need to budget a certain percentage for overrides.

New hires – Overrides are often paid on cash-in for the first six months of employment

Others – Overrides are often paid on cash in after certain Levels of production are attained. These are often Paid on a quarterly basis to ensure consistent Production.

Q. What other factors should be considered?

A. Several….

a. Develop a specific budget for overrides

b. Write a detailed job description outlining the supervision responsibilities as well as your detailed expectations of this role

c. If this individual has never managed, provide management training.

d. Set a specific time frame

e. Schedule performance evaluations

When you delegate some of your management responsibilities to a capable person, the override could be the best investment you’ve made all year. You now have time to focus on generating profits and building your business.

* Go to http://www.staffingandrecruiting.com/recap

If you want to learn how to solve the top ten hiring mistakes and get a list of 12 questions you should ask during your interview with prospective hires for your office. You can listen to the audio of a free teleseminar or download? the PDF file handout for this training.