The radical practice of Open Hiring

Greyston Bakery in New York is one of the premier champions of the radical practice of Open Hiring. Anyone who applies for a job, gets it and training in it. No background or drug checks. They've been doing this for years with homeless and felons and they continue to be a prime partner in the food and service industries. They lead the way in proving the model.

"In doing so, they might see some benefits: While the annual employee turnover rate in similar manufacturing and production industries hovers between 30% and 70%, at the Greyston bakery, it’s just around 12%. Furthermore, because Greyston does away with the typical hiring process–which, between background checks and drug tests, can cost up to $4,500 per hire–it’s able to use the money saved to pay its employees a higher wage. While apprentices start at minimum wage, production supervisors, like Dion, earn a salary of around $65,000 with full benefits."

Stage hiring

Tech startup ace Doug Craver does stage hiring. He knows from many rodeos that companies go through stages of growth and development and each stage needs its own chemistry of talent. 

This is the opposite of mature company institutional hiring with no regard for stage-specific talent engagement. It requires a different protocol of hiring questions, onboarding and ongoing coaching. When done well, it is vital to the trajectory of the business.

Stacking the new hire deck: Hiring for culture

Three easy things increase the odds for good hires: agreements alignment, complementary goodness and evidence of growth mindset. This is the power of hiring for culture.

We ask candidates how they feel about the existing posted team agreements. These are the mutually crafted and tested agreements on what matters most  to us as we work together. 

We ask candidates for examples of abilities and qualities they have that are complementary to those on the team. We show them the list of abilities and qualities on the team currently.

We ask candidates what about this work they want to get better at, work on or develop. We show them examples of growing questions on the team.

Our best candidates are aligned, complementary and dedicated to growth. These simple questions separate those who look good on paper and those who will do well with the team.