How to Make the Most of Short-term Hires
Short-term hires can be extremely beneficial for companies if the team understands how to properly manage, onboard and leverage them — and often they can serve as catalysts for longer-term positions.
Experimenting with short-term or probationary contracts can be an effective way for companies looking for talent to get to know potential candidates and determine whether they are the right fit for permanent positions, before making any long-term commitments.
In addition to providing companies with the ability to see the potential new hire in action, this structure enables them to take advantage of faster initial onboarding times. If the candidate is provided with actionable project deliverables that can be achieved in the amount of time allotted, it can also serve as an extended job interview, and provide an opportunity to experiment with positions companies might be considering but aren’t yet ready to make permanent.
Specifically for startups that are still gaining brand recognition, working with a talent partner like Venture for Africa can offer access to a wider pool of experienced professionals who may also want to know what it’s like to work with the company before committing to something longer-term. Unlike talent programs which offer internships, Venture for Africa has developed a fellowship program designed to be a probationary period for both the candidates and startups. The VFA fellowship enables the candidate to learn while working on real deliverables with startup teams, and gain context in the market and sector before committing to anything full-time. Unfortunately, such short-term employment generally has a poor reputation in the market, often seen as something only for recent graduates or university students, and it also comes with its own set of challenges.
This is why based on our experience supporting fast-growing African startups, we have put together a few tips to dispel myths and help startups think about how they can make the most of short-term hires, to ultimately achieve the goal of finding people with the right skills and make them productive as quickly as possible.
Step #1: Determine your objectives
What is your need for this particular role? Is the purpose of this hire to fill a specific, one-off need for a defined period of time? Can this function as more of an ‘audition’, where the short-term role could develop into a permanent position? Your objective for the hire will dictate what kind of person you’re looking for and set your selection criteria. Be sure to think about the sort of deliverable you can assign a short-term hire that might make sense to enable you to see this person’s real potential shine through. Your vetting and hiring process should reflect the nature of the work to be done and/or project to be delivered.
Examples of questions you should answer include: What are you expecting this hire to accomplish? Is it achievable over the time period allotted? What would indicate success for this candidate at the end of their time with you? Are there specific tasks and expectations you have for them? Defining the role with a clear description of duties and deadlines will help you determine the type of person you need to do the job and help you set them up for success.
Step #2: Get the candidate engaged
Productivity is directly related to engagement, so it’s important to get your short-term hires ramped up as quickly as possible and committed to what they’re there to do. You’ll want to prepare a solid onboarding plan that is quick to execute and also robust enough to allow your new hire to hit the ground running. Additionally, you need to see how this person works within the larger team.
The goal here is to focus on the bigger picture. Introduce them to co-workers they’ll be spending a lot of time with. Share the project vision and direction with them. Show them where you think they fit, set them up with the right tools and give them access to any kind of internal knowledge base that might contain answers to fundamental questions they may have about the company and product, and about how your team is functionally structured (who is in charge of what, who are the key decision-makers, etc.)
If this is a hire you hope to maintain a relationship with, making them feel valued and part of the company earlier on will greatly influence their commitment to the task at hand and their decision about staying long-term in the future.
Step #3: Understand the candidate’s ways of working and management needs
Different tasks and individuals require different degrees of management. Many experienced short-term employees who are hired when there is a need for an expert role have chosen this type of work because they seek freedom and a high degree of flexibility. They do not want someone who is constantly looking over their shoulder, checking to see if they are doing the job right. As a manager, you need to trust your short-term employees to take the same responsibility for solving the tasks agreed on and delivering the expected results just as you would with your regular employees, while at the same time understanding they may have a number of questions and require direction as they begin to settle into your company and its ways of working.
Ensure you discuss their working style up front and make the right team members available to guide them in case they have any questions along the way. For more junior hires, a certain degree of hand-holding may be required before they can be fully independent, but that doesn’t mean they are not right for the job. It’s important to also evaluate a candidate’s potential to quickly grow into a role and grow alongside the company.
Step #4: Provide feedback early and often
The process of giving feedback creates an open working relationship among managers and their hires, allowing each to understand their progress toward a pre-set goal. However, it’s important to understand early on how that person prefers to give or receive feedback, as a negative experience can make for an uncomfortable working relationship.
It is important to make sure that you are accessible as a manager and that your new hire feels as though they can ask for constructive feedback, so they aren’t working in isolation. Your input will help shape their actions to better meet your team’s needs.
However, not all feedback is the same. To make sure you are doing this effectively, ensure your feedback is timely, constructive, specific and detailed.
Short-term hires can be extremely beneficial for companies if the team understands how to properly manage, onboard and leverage them — and often they can serve as catalysts for longer-term positions.
At Venture for Africa, we understand the value of enabling talent to soft-land into a new role, market or industry and work closely with companies to enable them to make the most out of their time with the fellows we source.
Are you ready to hire experienced talent to help grow your team? Get started here.
