Case Study: Ideal recruitment strategy more than a case of Mind Over Matter

Staffing can be major challenge for a lot of businesses, but having to deal with an unfair dismissal case can cost valuable time and money, not to mention the stresses involved.

As a small business operator, Linda Bright knows this first-hand. A well qualified and highly experienced clinical hypnotherapist, Ms Bright’s business, Mind Over Matter, has grown rapidly from a single practitioner operation in 2001 to a multi-practitioner practice specialising in stress and anxiety treatment, overcoming fears, phobias and addictions, and complementary treatment for a range of medical conditions.

Mind Over Matter now has a staff of six (four practitioners, one receptionist and one part-time marketer), and holds about 100 sessions a week.

In 2005, when the business’s receptionist decided to leave, and recommended a replacement, Ms Bright thought she had the situation covered quickly and easily.

But after six days on the job, following a discussion between Ms Bright and the new employee about the manner in which she was greeting and handling clients, the new receptionist made an abrupt departure.

Six weeks later, a claim for unfair dismissal and $50,000 compensation for pain and suffering landed on Ms Bright’s desk.

“When I was served with the claim I didn’t do anything initially – I was in complete shock,” Ms Bright told WA Business News.

“I was also suffering health problems at the time, so it was a very bad coincidence.”

After receiving the call from the claimant’s solicitor informing her of the monetary compensation claim, Ms Bright decided to get a solicitor of her own.

The claimant also went to the media and aired her concerns.

Ms Bright said she refused to comment on the matter in the media, but made sure she was not referred to by name in the broadcast by advising producers of the legal ramifications of doing so.

After the claimant refused a settlement offer, the case was brought before the Industrial Relations Commission.

In July, after a seven-month process, the commission ruled in Ms Bright’s favour and the case was dismissed.

In all, the case cost Ms Bright $14,000 in legal fees, seven months of management time, as well as staff hours and costs for witness time for other practitioners. It also put the business seven months behind in terms of growth and revenue.

“The total costs were estimated to be in excess of $20,000, which is being very conservative,” Ms Bright said.

What alarmed Ms Bright was the fact that the case went to trial in the first place.

“What concerned me was why it wasn’t dismissed in the preliminary hearing,” she said.

“We offered [the claimant] $5,000 dollars in compensation, which she didn’t accept. So we thought the case would be dismissed.”

From a psychological point of view, Ms Bright said, a huge weight was lifted when the case concluded, enabling her to focus on her clients and growing her business.

“Until now, there was nothing I could do to expand the business because I didn’t know what was going to happen. Was the business going to be dissolved? I didn’t know, we were just treading water.”

Ms Bright said she has now “pulled out all the stops”, investing more time and money than ever in the marketing side of the business, hiring a marketing officer, as well as refining her recruitment processes.

Ms Bright said her experiences had provided several lessons, some of which other professional service providers could apply to their businesses.

The biggest of these is the need to invest time (and money) in formal interview and recruitment procedures, and clarifying probation periods and conditions.

“Be clear about the condition of the probation period, always conduct formal interviews as part of the selection panel and include other practice partners in that process,” Ms Bright told WA Business News.