Hiring people to work

Hiring people, like any other management process, is not new, whatsoever. Today we read many articles discussing the matter, as we are again in a growing environment and companies are hiring a lot. I personally, as much as I hate bureaucracy and always look for the short and practical way to do things, feel that I myself am part of turning the hiring process in my company to being complicated and not so simple at all. Why? As everyone else, I am afraid of a hiring process that is not successful enough. First of all, I see the employee that may be asked to leave. Setting off an employee is always a very unpleasant situation. Companies should not hold people who do not fit in; but we always have to do everything we can to avoid taking people and replacing them. Every time we fire someone, I believe, we leave a scar in his or her heart. I admit that I have fired several people in the past years. When I do so, I try doing it while leaving the employee with their dignity and I try learning a lesson from each episode, in order to make the chances of the next time I'll have to stand in a similar situation, smaller.
Beside the personal sadness, firing people in order to replace them with others is a business loss. It also is a personal loss for the people left in the organization. We encourage our employees to develop an informal relationship one with another. Some of us (like me) call it "family value"; others use different superlatives. Good inter relations develop into good working environments and trust. Trust enables sharing and knowledge development, besides it giving each one of us as a worker a good feeling when we enter the office every morning.
The bottom line- We hire not to fire. Indeed simple. So why to write on it? And what is new looking in a knowledge perspective?
Looking in a knowledge perspective can give us some points to emphasis on:
In an era of knowledge, a worker has to learn a lot during his or her stay in the organization along the years. Sometime, the amount of learning exceeds the practice with which the employee arrived. The ability and desire of the candidates to learn are not less important than their professional experience.
In an era of knowledge it is important not only to know, but to be able to teach others and learn from them. It is not enough to learn from books and from the Internet. The ability to work with others, teach them and learn from them is essential to choosing the right people.
In an era of knowledge the workers choose the place they work in, not less than the organization chooses them. Adequacy between the organization's values (the real ones, not those on the office walls) and the personal values of the worker, will aid contribution of the worker to company's goals in the future. We have to remember that people do not stay for money only. There always will be someone somewhere else that will offer more. Employees want to feel that they are achieving their goals and working the "right" way; Organizations have to have the same feeling regarding the employees working for them: The managers have to have the feeling that each employee is part of the progress of the whole. A personal conversation with the candidate can be the way to test the adequacy. A conversation about goals and wishes; a conversation about what the employee likes to do in his or her free time and what make them happy. Such a conversation should not be held by the HR department. Organizations are built from smaller groups, each with its sub-values and ways of doing things. A conversation held with HR, seems too theoretical. It is better that the manager of the group will hold such a conversation and personally take such a decision.
Yes, there are other points that can help, but I tried to put down in this list the major ones: Learning ability, sharing ability and value adequacy.

Did I fall when hiring people? I sure did. But, I improved. And I'm still working on it.
I would appreciate hearing from your experience too, especially from the knowledge perspective.
Yours,
Moria.