On Internet Business

Getting and keeping the best staff the ‘1-800-got-junk’ way

Posted by Michael under Business Growth, Leadership

Since listening to Cameron Herold in March 2009, I have been interested in the practises of 1-800-got-junk – a company that, under Herold’s leadership, grew to over $106 million. One of their key successes is in recruiting and retaining the best possible staff.

How do they make themselves a great employer?

• The ability to have fun – Herold believes that people who are enjoying themselves collaborate better, communicate more and achieve more. He seeks out those who don’t take themselves too seriously and can ‘hang loose’ because he believes rigidity is damaging to business growth. By making fun part of the work day, Herold encourages his staff to enjoy life and work and to feel they are prioritised by their organisation, not just cogs in a machine.

How do they recruit the right staff?

• Cultural fit – fit first, skills second is Herold’s law – when he’s hired somebody with excellent skills, but whose outlook doesn’t match the views and vision that prevail in his organisation, it’s always gone wrong. Having staff whose focus and beliefs are congruent with the focus and beliefs of the organisation as a whole offers stability and the chance to move forward as one.
• A sunny outlook – optimism and a positive nature are vital to Herold’s view of the organisational ethos. Pessimism creates a negative business culture that is threatened by challenges and opposed to change and that means that stagnation, rather than growth, becomes the desired business model.
• A shared vision – Herold offers a two page ‘picture’ of his own organisation and sees if it inspires the potential recruit – if they get excited about the way he wants to do business and if their own vision for their future makes him feel excited to recruit them, then it’s a match.

How do they maintain growth?

• A fire within – when his staff want to help achieve his BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) for the business, and when they are motivated by the BHAG, not the short term rewards of bonuses or incentives, then growth follows naturally and organically.
• Love of goals – all his staff post their top three weekly and monthly goals above their desks, and this means that the whole organisation ‘trickles up’ to overall success – Herold believes that some people naturally set goals for themselves and those are the people who are more likely to achieve them, so goal setting is one of the key personality traits he’s looking for at interview.
• Tenacity – the ability to manage constant change is what Herold defines as tenacity; it’s not time-serving but the natural response of some individuals to work through challenges rather than giving in to them and he says he sees it in his key employees, time after time, challenge after challenge.

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