Research shows that traditional hiring practices are at best only ten percent effective in determining future job performance. Behavioral interviewing is fifty-five percent effective. (Source: Quintessential Careers)

Take these seven steps companies to ensure hiring the best of your job applicants and retaining them.

Step 1. Benchmark the Job.

Gather a team for a Job Benchmarking session to determine the Key Accountabilities required by the position.

People who recruit and hire employees feel they know how the job should be performed. Yet when I meet with clients, we discover that people who know the job can have very different ideas about what it requires.

Here's how Job Benchmarking works. With the help of an expert, unbiased facilitator, three to seven people from your company who know the job well (your subject matter experts) meet to first determine the position's Key Accountabilities. These are what each employee must commit to doing on a daily or regular basis for the job to exist.

Step 2. Assess the Job.

Next the team will assess the job's ideal behaviors, motivators, and task quotient required for superior performance. They will complete a three-part Job Benchmarking assessment, which determines the ideal behavior, values, and task distribution required by the job for superior employee performance. Their responses are based on how each statement relates to the job's Key Accountabilities.

The process involves ranking statements as if the job itself were talking. Example: The questionnaire asks, "The need for high quality controls is…" and your team ranks this statement from one to six, one being "Extensive" and six being "Very Limited."

Sometimes the group will disagree, because they each see the job as they would do it (or are doing it), and their perceptions can be different. But, after some discussion they come to a consensus.

Behaviors - This section measures and determines the ideal behavioral style the job requires for superior performance.

Motivators - This section measures which values the job rewards. Values determine what motivates an employee's performance.

Task Quotient - This determines the desired distribution of tasks the job requires for superior performance. The assessment shows what percentages of time the job calls for project tasks, routine tasks, and troubleshooting tasks.

When the Job Fit assessment is completed, the company will have a highly accurate picture of the ideal behaviors, values, and task distribution required by the job for superior performance.

Step 3. Determine Job Fit.

Assess your current employees in the job. Match their behavioral styles, values, and ideal task quotient to your Job Fit benchmark assessment. Have your current employees complete their Talent Fit assessment, which reveals their individual behavioral styles, motivators, and ideal task distribution.

Then complete a Job/Talent Comparison report, which compares their assessments to your job benchmarking assessment. You can be sure those who most closely match the job profiles are your best employees. The assessments provide detailed information on how to manage, motivate, and coach those who don't fit the job assessment to improve performance.

Step 4. Assess Your Applicants.

Assess job applicants and hire only those who match your job benchmark assessment.

It's difficult to determine with certainty how a person will do the job based on a job interview, because applicants are on their best behavior and tell recruiters what they think they want to hear, which may or may not be true.

A Michigan State University study found, "The job interview is (only) 14 percent accurate." Before hiring, recruiters need to know how people will do the job and what motivates them to achieve superior performance.

You want to hire employees who best fit all the criteria for the job, including their experience, skills, history, drug tests, and the other things you look at before hiring. But your job is only half done if you fail to determine their job fit. You can guess at it and be right 14 percent of the time. Or you can be sure by comparing job and employee assessments.

Behavioral based interviewing - understanding people's behaviors, values, and task preference - is the key to hiring superior performers.

Step 5. Performance Management.

Create a "people manual" for your managers and teams.

Using the information in each person's assessment (both the manager and employees), next create a team manual that everyone can share to build a stronger and more productive team. Make this a part of your company's culture and you will see improvements in management skills, productivity, team morale, job satisfaction, employee retention - and profitability.

Step 6. Performance Review.

Create a job performance review system based on the job's Key Accountabilities.

Your hiring process should include behavioral interviewing, based on the job's superior performance requirements and so should your performance review system. Employees should understand the Key Accountabilities for their jobs and know their performance review will look at how well they’re performing them.

Step 7. Employee Retention.

So now that you've gotten the right people in the right jobs, how do you keep them? By using the information in their assessments, you'll know exactly how to communicate with them, manage, motivate, train, and reward them, etc.

Your "people manual" is just as much, or even more, important than the manuals you have for your computers, procedures, and equipment. And which is most important? I agree with author, Jim Collins: "People are not your most important asset. The right people are."

These steps will help you hire, develop, and retain your most important assets. The job benchmarking process will give you clarity and confidence in making hiring and management decisions. Its purpose is to guarantee your company will hire, manage, and retain the right people.

These steps can give you an ounce of prevention worth a ton of cure.