PeopleMatter

Are you HR-ready for a zombie apocalypse?

Have your employees been acting a little slower than usual? Do they shuffle around aimlessly during the day? Are they bringing body parts for lunch? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you might be in the midst of a zombie apocalypse.

Don’t scream—they’ll know you are on to them. Take a deep breath and relax … some of us are prepared. Organizations like the CDC have issued apocalypse-preparedness outlines, undead experts like Max Brooks have written zombie-survival books and PMI has your hiring plan.

Stop bad hires from sucking the life out of your culture, brand and bottom line. Protect your service-industry business with “The Complete Guide to Hiring During a Zombie Apocalypse: Five Steps to Surviving the Undead Business.”

The Onslaught

Employees are disappearing. Your hiring needs have hit an all-time high. It’s worse than summer and holiday hiring seasons…combined. Businesses without our emergency guidelines are failing left and right. Don’t make the same mistake and hire people without a (service-minded) brain; they quickly rot healthy company culture and even your most loyal customers’ allegiances. So how can you find the good ones—before they’re all gone?

1. Track The Good, The Bitten and The Rotting

Narrowing your options from dozens or even hundreds of applicants to the surviving few requires fast, efficient candidate tracking. Managing by paper-and-pen methods eat into valuable time and make it easy for the undead to invade your organization.

‘The Guide’ recommends using an online applicant tracking system to defend your brand. An ATS helps you sort and filter applications, send messages and set up interviews quickly and easily—without ever leaving your bunker. Since security is paramount, and survivors are always on the move, use online tactics to easily and conveniently reach the ‘Good’ and ‘Unbitten’ candidates.

2. Grave Assessment

Now that you’ve checked their service-industry vitals, how do you “feel out” applicants without losing a finger? Integrated assessment tests uncover who’s ‘Good,’ who’s been bitten, and who’s already rotten…before you hire them. Pre-hire assessments identify candidates who are 18 times more likely to assist coworkers who need help and 14 times more likely to go above-and-beyond whenever possible. (Critical in the zombie war, proven in times of peace.)

Professional assessments are best, but in a world full of zombies…professional help could be hard to find. If left to your own devices, use behavioral questions designed to identify customer-survival minded individuals. The Guide suggests questions like: “Are you more likely to help overloaded coworkers or bite and/or maul them?” Or, “Do you provide pleasant service or groan irately at customers?”

3. Back (Under)ground Checks

Studies show that résumés are only 2 percent predicative of job performance, interviews 15 percent and death certificates 98 percent.* Running background checks, therefore, is critical. Now, not only are you searching criminal histories, but you also ‘dig’ into obituaries, death certificates and coronary reports. Even the undead can’t escape the red tape!

Since the onset of the apocalypse, theft, workplace violence, drug use and falsified qualifications can seem like small offenses. But if you’re not running background checks today, a zombie might shuffle through, too. Widespread death and destruction only add insult to costly-lawsuit-and-brand-damage injury.

4. Post Mortem

The first 30 days of employment are vital. Most employees decide whether or not they will stay with your company, and signs of rotting start to appear on the newly bitten. You must protect and engage the ‘Good’ to keep them from fleeing, and monitor key analytics to spot the sick.

Use automated onboarding to instantly see which candidates have completed tasks, like random tests for flesh-eating bacteria, and send reminders to those who haven’t. Web-based onboarding platforms also let you save all paperwork safely in the ‘cloud.’ Anytime, anywhere access is priceless, especially if you never know when you’ll be on the run.

Adding custom policies, completing the I-9, processing tax credits and more are fast and easy—even in high-stress apocalypse environments. You can even send important updates and alerts to new hires, such as safe locations or the latest deceased. Online acknowledgement of terms is essential when you have a shoot first, question later policy on tardy employees.

5. Resuscitate Your Culture

Thanks to the apocalypse, society is restructuring…and so should you. Your service-industry business needs to survive the coming war by attracting and retaining the best non-undead employees. An important step in hiring is defining your culture. Candidates are drawn to companies that provide innovative technology tools and survival training. After all, your employees aren’t just cashiers, bartenders or servers; they’re the key to your survival. They must feel empowered and valued as an asset to your business, so let them hold the shotgun occasionally.

Motivated employees, who thrive in life-or-undeath situations, will strengthen your culture and brand. Your business should develop a stream of repeat customers, drawn to the culture of safety and good service you build through good hiring. Remember, if customer satisfaction dies on your watch, you can’t bring that ROI back from the dead.

Rise of the ROI

Congratulations…you’re now prepared to hire during a zombie apocalypse! Follow our five simple steps to nix zombies from your business and quarantine them to your Netflix queue. So relax, kick back with your semi-automatic and watch your business…well, rise from the dead.

Happy Zombie-ing,
The PeopleMatter Institute

*All zombie/death related stats are as factual as the apocalypse itself. All other stats and facts are from credited sources.