Getting "Good Guys"

Technically speaking, its hard to find good guys. I'm not referring to the vicious looking and evil doll popularized by "Chucky", but people who are worth keeping at the office.

How to get "Good Guys":

Ask around from people whom you know has good credibility. This might be a person whom you've worked with before and earned a lot of respect, or somebody you've known to be of good name within the crowd he belongs to.
Get good people from good pools. Find them through job sites like Jobstreet and/or JobsDB. A lot of professionals invest in putting their resumes online through these job sites.
Pay attention to the society where your potential worker might belong to. Listen up and listen well. More often than not, those who have the heart to work an extra mile for their careers are those who will work well in the field they specialize in.
Civil or not, you can also get good people from good companies. Every opportunity is fair game. Chances are, what their output is in that company will be just the same or better when they're in your court. Business will always be business in the end.

Research their background. This should be pretty standard and straightforward. Every hiring personnel should know and must do this as part of a protocol. (Even I myself do this). To mention a few, try calling all their character references. Find out more about the person's attitude, working ethics, and performance. To further strengthen their testimonies, try searching for their web footprints. These are things that one can no longer strip as part of their character. Where one has been and what has been duly reported as an imprint of his character online is what can be the potential expectation you will meet during his/her time of service to you.

Now, once you've got your "good guy", its no hooray yet. Every business has its investments, risks, gains and losses. Chances are, before you even got your "good guy", you've already met a lot of losses because you took the risk. You want and need quality that is why you didn't settle for less, and you took the long and hard way to achieve it. You've wasted time and effort to find one "good guy" to keep. But the question is, how do you keep your "good guy"?

How must you keep your "good guy"? I personally believe, here are some points that you can look into.

Bargain with a fair price. The company will loose some, but be mature and wise to understand that the "good guy" is not a loss for the company in financial aspect. Sometimes, quality is better than quantity. Never cut good work short of its value… and for the worker: Never sell yourself short.
Put the good fish in a good pool. Chances are, the bad water will only pollute and kill the good fish. Make your structure firm and organized. There is no point investing in getting "good guys" if you don't intend to work out a good structure that will grow and eventually nurture the good fish.
Be ready with a plan. Most likely, the "good guy" is not one who will settle for anything less. Its like taking in another brain for your office. It won't just sit there doing nothing. It will be working its way into your business to prosperity and success. If it doesn't know where its heading to, then chances are, its going to think for itself and move into a better plan. So before it hits you right at your face that you're losing your "good guy", get better and work out a plan.
Be a human and be appreciative. "Good guys" may seem to be the best people at work and with what they do, but they are humans too. Show a little bit of appreciation. Just a little "Nice work" and "Thank you" will do the trick. They are sensible and responsible people and will not require tons of praises. Just making sure that you know they exist and they do good job, will be enough to fuel the initially present passion in their hearts.
Show them good leadership. The body can't be all healthy, polished and shiny when the head is rotting away. What you do and work out as an example is what will be the model for everyone else.. same goes for your "good guy". Work out the best in yourself as the head, so the "good guy" will always end up looking up, not looking down.

In the end, your "Good Guy" will always be faithful if you know how to handle them with respect, care and honesty. I have always believed it to be best to treat people just as much as how you'd want to be treated.

I'm a "Good Guy". I know I am one. Are you treating me well?