Locating Qualified Employees

Hiring a new employee is a difficult operation for the small business. It is a hard to find the right person, qualify them, convince them your company is the right place for them and arrive at fair compensation and benefits for you and the new employee.

Many small business owners look to their personal acquaintances for leads and referrals to new employees and avoid traditional channels of finding employees such as placing an ad in the newspaper or on one of the many job websites or even hiring a employment agency.  Referrals from acquaintances have two perceived advantages; it is cheaper – no advertising fees - and a personal recommendation.  While it may save an advertising fee it is likely that the recommending person more often has little or no knowledge of the person's professional abilities, they just like them. If they do have professional knowledge it is still more likely they will recommend a person on personality than professional abilities.

Hiring relatives is likely even a bigger mistake that is often made by family businesses. Managing family members has a whole host of difficulties and mixed dynamics. If you hire you own relatives it is nearly impossible not to mix family and business relationships. If you hire family members of employees and you need to discipline or even terminate one member of the family it will likely impact the relationship between the company and the other family members who are employees.

The problem with placing an ad particularly on one of the websites is particularly in the current job market you will get so many resumes that it will be difficult if not impossible to sort through them.  We placed and ad for a bookkeeper and within hours we pulled the ad because we received over two hundred resumes. One was from a guy working at a burger restaurant who was willing to learn the job and on was from a country that I could not even locate by continent. They would work cheap as long as we got them a work visa. We narrowed the list down to ten and set up interviews.   After interviews we had three that appeared more of less equally qualified.

An associate of mine recommended a on line personality test. I was skeptical but had the three potential employees complete the on line test my friend recommended. Remember this was a personality test not a skills test for a bookkeeper.  The results pointed clearly at one of the potential employees. The test her personality was best fitted to the job description. Whether it was the test or dumb luck she was indeed very well suited to the position. On line personality tests are a great tool to determine if an applicant if suited to the position.

Original Content copyright 2010 Thomas Robinson

Create a Holiday Policy

There is no federal law that requires private employers to pay employees for holidays that are not worked, pay additional for working on holidays or even to give time off for holidays but it has become common practice and most of your employees will expect it.

Christmas, New Years, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, Independence Day (Fourth of July) and Labor Day are traditional work holidays. Is it your policy to make those paid holidays? Does the Employees class; full time, part time, probationary, play a role in whether they are paid for the holiday or not? For example; full time may be paid but part time hourly might not. Do you have union agreements in place for some employees that regulate the issue?

There are a number of days that have become virtual holidays in many companies such as the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday), Christmas Eve, and New Years Eve. There are also holidays that are recognized by some governmental agencies such a Washington's Birthday, Columbus Day, Veterans Day and Martin Luther King's birthday. There are also religious holidays that are important to your employees.

Establish what holidays your recognize, if you will pay employees, in not all which employees will be paid and will you give time off if not paid. Start with the six traditional. If you decide they are to be paid holidays then examine the other days. One solution is to make the six traditional holidays paid then have a number of "floating" holidays that you can assign to those virtual holidays depending on how they fall in the week so you can allow the employee to take advantage of long weekends. If they are not to be paid holidays can your employee work if they choose or are they required to take the day off?

If your employee asks for a religious holiday that is not a holiday under your policy will you allow the time off or is the employee required to use a vacation day? Will the time off be paid? If you allow one employee special considerations will other employees want their own special considerations?

Are you in a business where you need employees to work those days; retail, medical, emergency services? Will you pay "holiday pay"; double time, 1½ time?

When I first started my company I gave my employees half days on Christmas and New Years Eve and thought I was being generous. When we were busy and I asked employees to work Black Friday there was grumbling. Even if the policy is absolutely clear to you put in writing so there is no misunderstanding. It is far better for an employee to know they are going to be required to work then be given the day off than expect a holiday and have to break plans because they are needed at work.

 Original Content Copyright 2010 Thomas Robinson

When to Fire an Employee

In a previous article we discussed how to terminate an employee but not when.  In this article we will talk about when to fire an employee.  I once read an article from a respected industry consultant who said the time to fire an employee was the first time you think about it. In my experience I always waited too long. The best solution is somewhere in between.

You have likely invested time and money to hire and train the employee. While it is often personally hard to terminate someone making sure you are doing what is the best for the company and not reacting to an irritation will usually make it easier.

I always thought that the best and easiest way is to have the employee make decision for you.

There are a number of offenses that require immediate termination for the good of the company such as theft, violation of company policy, or disruptive behavior.   If you are certain an employee is stealing but do not have enough proof to call the police you can still terminate the at will employee. It may be best to not get into details of your suspicions. It can only lead to argument or perhaps legal problems. It is easier to terminate an employee for violation of company policy if it is a written policy because the policy is not up to interpretation.  

If the employee steals, violates policy or is disruptive then the employee has decided to fire themselves not you. If you have an employee who is not getting the job done deciding to end the employment relationship can be harder.  There are a number of things to consider.

Does the employee have the training or experience to do the job that is assigned? If you hired the person because they represented that they had the necessary skills did they misrepresent their skills, did you misrepresent the job or could you have designed the job with procedures that make the job easier to perform so you could have hired a less skilled (and cheaper) employee.  

Does the employee have the necessary tools, support and other resources necessary to complete the job or is the workload too heavy for even a skilled employee?  An accurate job description and frequent employee reviews where you discuss company goals and set goals and expectations for the employee are both critical.  With an accurate job description there is no question of what the job is and goals will define the performance you expect. Communicating the failures must be fair and constructive. The best guidance given at high volume and in anger will likely be ineffective.

If you have communicated your expectations regularly and those expectations are not met then it will come as no surprise when you tell the employee that they are being let go. By their performance they will fire themselves.

The worst possible situation is that you realize you have not given the employee the tools to succeed but because the employee is frustrated or angry you decide that the employee relationship cannot be saved.  You still need to do what is best for the company and terminate the employee. Learn from the experience and make sure the next employee has what they need to succeed.

Original material copyright © Thomas Robinson 2010

An Employee Quits: Control the Exit Interview

One of your employees walks into your office and says I”I need to talk to you.” In the next few minutes the employee quits. You need to be prepared in advance for this eventuality because if you have employees some will leave. There can be several different scenarios.

The Friendly Quit: This might happen if the employees spouse is transferred, other family changes or other reasons not related to the company or their compensation. This will be the easiest conversation but you need to treat it the same as the other scenarios.

The Unfriendly Quit: The most likely scenario is the employee has found another job and is leaving for more pay or promotion.

The Hostile Quit: The employee announces he no longer can stand working for the company.

Often the “quit” is a combination of the above. I had an employee who apologized for leaving. She said she needed to stay home to take care of her elderly parents. A few weeks later I received a call from one of our customers who told me this employee was working for a competitor and was soliciting our customer’s business for her new employer. 

You should have a scripted exit interview. Get it out and complete the interview immediate while everything is fresh. It will likely you will catch the employee off guard and you will get the best information before they have too much time to think and develop excuses instead of reasons for quitting.

Once you complete the interview (see article Script an Exit Interview) you or a trusted employee should escort the former employee out of the building. If you return to the now former employee’s office or work station, do not leave them alone. Let them collect their personal articles and escort them out of building. If the exit interview shows any signs of hostility then escort them out and send them their personal items. Allowing a former employee even a friendly one to work for several weeks after they give notice is inviting lose of critical data and even theft of proprietary information.

original content copyright Thomas Robinson 2010