Your Turnover Rates Will Skyrocket If You’re Not Hiring Based on This One Thing

You want the best people working with your brand?

Hire for passion.

At Rock Candy Media, we don’t like rules very much. Deadlines, we stick to. But email etiquette? Beating around the bush? Fake customer service voices? How about no. Adhering to norms isn’t how Rock Candy Media got to be a top advertising agency in Austin, Texas.

So we don’t have a problem telling you that your brand simply won’t make it if you’re not hiring people based on passion. And as we’ve said before, your OG team when you build a brand is the boat you’ll be stuck on for the long haul.

Here are a few hiring things that would matter to anyone:

How many zeros are in the salary you plan to give them

Cool office spaces with hammocks and an air hockey table, or something

Creative recognition (do something better than ‘employee of the month’)

And anything else you can read in literally any business book or hear from other Austin branding consultancies

But here is the one thing that the BEST people will care about:

Getting to do what they’re passionate about.

I don’t mean the people that answer your “Why do you want to work here?” question with a BS answer of “I’ve always admired your company… *checks notes on arm because this is their third interview this week*” And by passion, I don’t mean how in their off hours they march in the streets or cook grand meals or bike 100 miles. That usually has little or nothing to do with their career.

Here are some examples of where you might find an employee’s subtle passion in their job.

The copywriter

They not only know they love writing, but specifically love having the creative freedom to establish a ‘red thread’ throughout a content strategy. They like warping the ending image of what a strategic blog or social media feed should look and feel like, and adjusting course to get there.

The exec assistant

They’re not just good at administrative tasks and oddly find Excel calming. They like being given a big goal that they can break down into tiny achievables, like ‘improve company culture.’ In their hands you’ll see it become the best pitch deck you’ve ever seen of possible events, ‘don’t email me after 6’ rules, catered lunches, etc.

The public relations consultant

This person is great at what they do. They can successfully pitch to press, they can write the internal newsletters, they have a degree in business communications, they can meander through the world of personalized advertising. But what they LOVE? Crises. PR blunders. Angry customers. A cyberbully attack on the Facebook business page. This person wants the rush of assessing and addressing something that, unchecked, could wreck the company reputation.

The list could go on. What you as a CEO or hiring manager have to find is what aspects of a job (or what part of the process) could be their passion, and how to make sure they get to do that part on the regular.

Know Their Energizers

The biggest mistake you can make when hiring is filtering applications by degree, GPA, number of references, or even years of experience. Make it part of an application to talk about why they do what they do. What they love about it. What they hate about it. What drains them. What energizes them.

Because later, when they’re working in your office, and your copywriter hasn’t gotten to do any creative strategy because they’re too bogged down with keyword research, productivity is going down. Morale is going down. And in the background, your entire company burnout and turnover rate is slowly creeping upward.

Everyone knows a job has its ups and downs. People are never going to adore every aspect of their day-to-day. I mean, it’s a job. What they can do, though, is be in a company where their boss knows what they’re truly passionate about, and helps make that part of their role in the company.

Entrepreneurs, business owners, and CEOs figure out how to do great things. It’s what you do.

It’s time to put that power into your hiring methods and decisions.

Get passionate people, because that’s the bottom line in getting people to do their best, most dedicated work. You can read more on that, or better yet, just sit down with the CEO of the top advertising agency in Austin. We know how to get brands where they want to go. Period.