The Basics of Hiring

Libraries full of management books have been written on this subject, but here’s a quick and easy guide to the kind of people you should and should not hire.

The two most important factors are 1) Loyalty, and 2) Competence.

The low on loyalty and low on competence.

AKA ‘The useless,’ these are the kind of people that Starmer & Co want to foist off on employers with their ‘day one’ employment rights proposal. The one competence some of these people do have is the ability to con their way through an interview, but they see a paying job as a private version of the social security system and stop trying the minute they are hired. Currently you can chop them as soon as you realise what they are, but Starmer plans to make your business their nanny. They need to learn that society does not owe them a living, and the sooner they learn that the better for them and everyone else. Everyone has potential, them included. They can learn that loyalty gets rewarded and behave accordingly, and they can work at their competencies, but they won’t do either so long as they can get what they want without trying. Feather-bedding such people does them no favours, but Starmer plans to do just that, and the good employers, and good workers, and the country will pay for it.

The high on loyalty but low on competence.

Think of Trigger from ‘Only Fools and Horses.’ These people have an essential place in every organisation and society in general. They will happily be great janitors or post-room people or road sweepers or fast-food servers forever. You should love, cherish, and nurture them. The world could not work without them. Don’t look down on them, pay them as much as you reasonably can for the jobs they do, tip them well, and make sure they are honoured in their own sphere as much as the high-flyers are in theirs.

The low on loyalty but high on competence.

AKA 'snakes,' these are the scheming courtiers and office politics-players. Think Sejanus of I, Claudius, Reinhard Heydrich, and Vladimir Putin. Their competence makes them useful, sure, extremely useful if you need a hatchet-man, but you can and must never trust them. Keep them compartmentalised and chop them at the first sign of trouble. If you don't, they’ll steal your business, or even your entire country, from under your nose, and they will bury you.

The high on loyalty and competence.

These are the diamonds. Find them and keep them, ideally with, one way or another, a meaningful piece of the action. Be as loyal to them as they are to you, and try to be more so, because they will appreciate it, because these people are living positive feedback loops.

Within each category there are degrees and shades. Nobody is ever just one thing, and life is not black and white, but these are the basics and if you remember this you won’t go far wrong, especially when you're deciding who to vote for in elections.