The employee/employer relationship is a complicated one, and the answer should be based not upon a single factor such as the economy, but upon several.

The employee/employer relationship is critical to the operation of any successful business, and decades of research has demonstrated the positive impacts of having a loyal, dedicated, and skilled workforce. The hiring and firing of employees is a decision fraught with risk, and an intelligent business should not attempt to cut corners. In fact, many businesses that have attempted to do so have found themselves out of business in short order.

The first and most important factor to consider when hiring employees is their ability to perform their duties. If the employee is not qualified, then the company will waste time and money training them. A manager who hires a capable, but unqualified employee may find that the incompetent employee fails to perform the necessary tasks, causing trouble for the manager. The manager’s mismanagement of any issues that arise may cause problems for the employee as well. These problems could range from poor performance reviews, to unfair termination, to legal repercussions. A manager who hires a talented but unreliable employee, on the other hand, may find that the talented employee can easily sabotage the manager’s efforts. Eventually, the manager may lose all faith in his own abilities, and the entire company may fall apart. The hiring process should thus be as thorough as possible, to ensure that only the most competent employees are hired.

The second and most obvious factor to consider when hiring employees is their loyalty to the company. Employees should be hired with the intention of remaining with the company for many years, if not the rest of their life. The manager of a company must therefore be willing and able to offer job security to all of his employees. The manager should thus prioritize hiring people who will stay with the company for a long time, as opposed to hiring individuals who may jump ship at any point. If employees do leave the company, the manager should attempt to replace them quickly, since those employees’ knowledge and skills will have left the company as well. If managers insist on hiring people only so long as they are useful to the company, then the company will be at a disadvantage in recruiting talented individuals; skilled employees will be unwilling to work for a company that appears to value them only as long as their work is necessary. In addition, many employees will feel that they are being undervalued by companies that hire people only so long as they are needed. This sense of mistreatment can lead to dissatisfaction among workers, which can result in lower morale, lower productivity, and even workplace violence.

The third factor to be considered when hiring employees is their motivation and work ethic. Employees who are not motivated or who lack a sense of urgency will likely waste the manager’s time and money, especially if their job involves a significant amount of manual labour. Motivation and work ethic are notoriously difficult to gauge for a person in an interview, but an employee’s willingness to work hard should be apparent from the employee’s previous job history, as well as from the manager’s interactions with that employee. Any employee that the manager has not interacted with in many years, or who the manager has not been satisfied with in the past, should not be hired. The manager should thus be wary of hiring employees based on stereotypes, or because of personal biases.

If these three factors are considered, then most managers will be able to identify talented employees who will stay with the company for decades. The manager should then offer those employees generous pay and benefits, in the hope that they will remain loyal and work diligently for the company. Unfortunately, however, it is not always possible to hire only loyal, hard-working employees. The global economy is highly competitive, and many businesses must hire workers with less-than-perfect credentials and who are willing to take a financial hit in order to work in the company. In this case, the manager should hire the employee, but provide the employee with extensive training to ensure that the employee can perform his duties at the highest possible level. In addition, the manager should continually evaluate the employee’s performance, to ensure that he/she is meeting expectations. If the company cannot afford to invest in training, then the manager should consider terminating the employee and hiring a new, more competent employee, or outsourcing the work to another company.

The employee/employer relationship plays a central role in the operation of any successful business. As such, the manager should carefully examine the three factors listed above when hiring employees. The most successful managers carefully consider each employee’s skills, loyalty, and motivation before hiring them, and they maintain these high standards throughout the employee’s tenure with the company.