No matter what type of company you run, hiring or promoting the wrong person and the wrong time can absolutely derail your company’s progress and culture.

Not only is hiring time consuming, getting new staff trained and operating effectively is expensive as well.

This goes double for Martial arts academies.

We don’t run massive companies where employees are simply a number.

Some of us only have a few people on staff–if that. The cost of losing people is simply too much.

Not only do you have to look for a replacement, but if they’re a coach or well-connected within your community, you’ll start to hear a lot of grievances from members about why someone is no longer working at the school.

Once you get a little further along, you’ll run into a similar issue when looking to promote staff to higher positions.

We use a simple test that helps us put the right people in the right place more often than not. It’s not a fool proof system, but we’ve found much more success with hiring, firing, and promoting after implementing it.

The test is called GWC, which is an acronym for Get it, Want it, and Capacity for it.

These are the simple questions we ask about anyone we’re looking to hire or promote.

Get It

Do they get the purpose of the position?

Do they have the basic skills necessary to succeed if they take on the job?

Do they understand how the position fits into the larger picture of the Academy?

Do they get what we’re trying to do and how their role affects that?

If they don’t “get it,” they most likely won’t succeed in the position.

Staff that struggle to get it not only underperform, but they tend to cause culture problems as well due to their lack of connection to the bigger picture.

Want It

Do they want the position?

Do they want to succeed and grow at your school, or is this simply a job that helps pay the bills?

Sometimes you need to fill a position in the academy.

Maybe it’s a front desk shift, or the 12pm Jiu Jitsu class. You can’t let this need force you to make a hasty decision.

If you put someone in a position that they don’t actually want, the likelihood that they will succeed, or even put in their best effort is low.

If they don’t want the position, it’s not for them and you need to find someone who does.

Capacity for it

Capacity encompasses a lot of different things.

Do they have the skills to take on the position?

Do they have the time required to do it?

What other jobs are they working?

What other obligations do they have?

If you need someone on the mat from 5-7pm, but that person has to pick up their kids from practice at 6:30, or they don’t get off of their second job until 4:50pm, they don’t have the time to do the job.

This means they don’t have the capacity to do the job.

Capacity means availability, adequate skills set, and ability to learn new skills necessary to succeed.

Every time we hire or promote, we run a candidate through GWC. If they don’t hit all of the criteria, they aren’t a fit for the job.

The same goes for firing people as well.

Sometimes you hire someone who gets it, wants it, and has the capacity for it. However, life changes and sometimes these changes change their ability to meet the requirements of the position.

If someone no longer has the capacity to do their job, they’re no longer a fit.

It could be time to let them go, especially when this starts to affect their performance.

Most of us aren’t experienced running businesses. We started a martial arts academy because we had a passion for martial arts, but maybe not for operating a business.

Still, we simply can’t afford to mess up hiring. It’s too costly.

Start trying putting your candidates through the GWC test to see if they’re a good fit for you.

It’s not a fool-proof system, but it does provide a strong base for making decisions.

Try GWC out for your next hire and let us know how it goes.