If you aren’t helping recruit and train new people, then you’re part of the problem.
I just wanted to throw it out there and make it simple. While executives and managers are ultimately responsible for bringing in new talent, it’s something that has to be done by everybody in the building if you’re ultimately going to be successful.
When I’ve taken new roles with new stations or clusters, one of the first things I like to do is to welcome everyone to the sales, promotions and recruitment teams. If people didn’t think these things were their responsibility before, I make it clear right from the beginning, that all of us are responsible for those very important things.
After all, who else is going to do a better job of selling the value of our properties and opportunities? Who else will know more about our events and promotions and be able to talk about them with enthusiasm and get people excited? And who else knows more about the type of people we are often looking for and can help talk up the company from an employment standpoint?
The obvious answer to all of these are the people in the building. Not just certain people, but all of the people, contributing where they can for the benefit of everyone.
The recruitment front is the one often forgotten about. And that is across the board in the various departments. To most people, recruitment is something you do when you have an opening to fill. Good managers will realize that it’s even more important to do when you don’t have a specific role to fill, and if you’re recruiting between hires, your life will be so much easier when, inevitably, a change needs to be made.
The whole point of this column, however, is that it should not just be the managers who are working on recruitment. Help can and should be coming from anyone and everyone that has a connection to someone they think could help make the company or product better. To go a step further, others (non-managers) should actively participate in the training of new staff.
Whoa, first he askes us to help find people and now he’s going to ask us to help train them, too? Yep, I sure am, and for very good reason – people like to be trained by their peers more than by their managers. This in no way takes the responsibility off the manager as they’ll still handle a majority of the training, but sometimes the shadowing of other people doing the exact same thing the trainee will be doing, is much more impactful.
So, while it’s our nature in sales to be very competitive (which can also make for a wee bit of insecurity here and there), this is a big-picture thing where you have to want better people representing your brand and see how that will, eventually, help you. People who are not good at our jobs going out and representing the same things we do is not a good thing, and if you see someone struggling, you need to either say something to your manager or step in and help.
People always want to be part of the solution, so for all of our sakes, help recruit and train so everyone is better off in the end.
Dave Greene is the Chief Media Officer for Barrett Media. His background includes over 25 years in media and content creation. A former sports talk host and play-by-play broadcaster, Dave transitioned to station and sales management, co-founded and created a monthly sports publication and led an ownership group as the operating partner. He has managed stations and sales teams for Townsquare Media, Cumulus Media and Audacy. Upon leaving broadcast media he co-founded Podcast Heat, a sports and entertainment podcasting network specializing in pro wrestling nostalgia. To interact, find him on Twitter @mr_podcasting. You can also reach him by email at Dave@BarrettMedia.com.
