Slow to hire, quick to fire.  Jason and I see eye to eye when it comes to hiring new staff for our company.  We take it very seriously and want to make sure we get the right culture fit first and avoid the temptation to fill an empty seat no matter how badly we need to.  There was a period last year where over the course of about 3 months we hired 5 people which was a lot for us.  In the case of our project managers for example, we are looking for people with high integrity, organizational skills, field leadership and good communication among other things.  Just recently after an annual review of one of my employees I asked for his wife’s email address.  He looked at me funny and asked why.  I told him that early in my career I had been blessed to work for an amazing boss who upon hiring would get the contact info of his employees significant other.  It could be your wife, husband, mom, dad, etc.  He would then send a news letter out to them monthly letting them know how the company was doing and how their significant other was doing.  It worked well in terms of connectedness, motivation and accountability, so back to the email.  I emailed my employee’s wife, very short and sweet but the thrust of the note was to say “thank you” for being supportive of her husband and his efforts.  I also told her that if I had to do it all over again I would hire her husband because he is such a good, positive person with enormous integrity and a joy to be around, and no amount of coaching or training can teach that.  Experience can be key sometimes but the core character of someone trumps that in a service business.  We also try to get a lot of windshield time regularly visiting with our staff but formally we review both quarterly and annually, trying to spot trends and areas for improvement.  If we can do that while maintaining a positive relationship with that person then our culture and organizational habits can be spread to our clients and most importantly give them a much better experience.