Retaining the Good Employee is the sixth and final article in our series, Building a Successful Business One Employee at a Time. This section reviews and re-emphasizes the importance of all the previous articles in helping organizations develop the optimal staff. Previous articles were Attracting Quality Candidates, Conducting the Successful Interview, Matching the Right Person to the Right Job, Orienting the New Hire Into Your Firm, and Supporting the New Employee with the Proper Training.

Organizations today are finding it more difficult to hire and retain quality employees than in years past. During the first half of the last century people left school, began working and, after 30 or 40 years, retired. As we entered the decade of the ‘60’s, a subtle shift began to take place. The culture of the workplace was changing.

Up until that time, the average worker accepted whatever was presented by the organization – the pay, the benefits, the amount of time spent on the job versus time at home, etc. The baby boomers began to question the employer, “is that all there is?”

This change in values was passed from the boomers to their children – the Generation Xer’s and, now, onto the Generation Y’s. As this transition was taking place it substantially changed the world for employers.

Today’s employees place a high priority on the following:

• Family orientation
• Sense of community
• Quality of life
• Volunteerism
• Autonomy
• Flexibility and nonconformity

Some of the main reasons people leave one job for another are:

1. Not being suited to the job they are doing
2. Lack of being appreciated
3. Lack of support in doing their jobs
4. Lack of opportunity for advancement
5. Inadequate compensation for what is being asked of them
6. Poor working conditions

The following steps will assist you in hiring and retaining the best employees for your company.

Examine recruitment and hiring procedures.

1. Assess how you find candidates now.
2. Modify to find better candidates if not satisfied.
3. Determine how well the top candidates match the job using a pre-employment test.
4. Review interviewing process and align with targeted selection processes.
5. Develop assessment center to determine skill level of candidates for particular type work done by organization.
6. Utilize a weighted system to hire top candidates.

Examine why people have been leaving.

1. Conduct exit interviews for people leaving the organization.
2. Use this information to improve.

• Review current job descriptions and benefits and then modify based on financial constraints of the organization.
• Develop accurate assessment of organizational values. • Review and possibly revise orientation of new employees.
• Develop in-depth orientation program to get new employees integrated solidly into the organization.

3. Have weekly individual follow-up meetings with new employees for first six months.
4. Utilize criteria presented during orientation as the basis for monthly mini performance reviews.

• Offer training that will enhance employee’s skills or fill voids discovered during the skill assessment phase.
• Explore deferred compensation beyond money that will retain valued employees.

Retaining Good Employees Process

1. Access current hiring and turnover ratios
2. Identify ideal state of hiring and turnover
3. Conduct gap analysis and develop a plan
4. Execute plan for improving hiring and retention
5. Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

Suggestion on how to use our hiring reports more effectively

Several of our clients report that they read the summary a couple of times before reading the entire report. This enables them to understand why we arrived at our conclusion and subsequent recommendation. Then they use our hiring report to validate other sources of information such as reference checks, resumes, etc. to make their final decision.

Supporting the New Employee with the Proper Training Part 5 in our series“Building a Successful Business One Employee at a Time.” Attracting Quality Candidates, Conducting the Successful Interview, Matching the Right Person to the Right Job, and Orienting the New Hire Into Your Firm can be reviewed in issues 3, 4, 5, and 6 of our newsletter.

Now that the new employee understands your organization and what is expected of him or her through a good orientation process, the next step is to assure their long-term success with the firm. The best way to do this is to make certain they have what is needed to handle the work in a manner suitable to the firm. Often managers feel that the new hire has the experience to do the job without needing further training. This leads to the frustration of the new employee and an upset manager when things are not done as they should be.

Early in the recruiting process it is usually decided whether the organization wants to hire people with experience or to hire people with little, if any, experience and then train them to meet the organization’s expectations. However, it really does not matter as every new employee should receive training regardless of his or her work history and this is why.

Even though you may be identifying a particular job with the same title as everyone else in your profession it is unique due to the fact your firm is unique. Thus, in order to assure the success of every employee they need training whether they are new to the workforce or have been doing the same job for 20 years somewhere else.

A veteran employee likely has ‘habits’ or ways of doing things they bring with them from their former employer. When a person does a job a certain way over a period of time it is difficult for them to change, but training can help. In many training circles it is often said that you have to break employees of their ‘bad habits’ before you can teach them your ‘good habits’.

The inexperienced person needs training to get them up to speed and to help them understand what is expected of them in the role. Every new employee should be trained in the ways of your organization so everyone has an equal chance of being successful. The question is “how to do we go about that?”

The first thing to remember is to never let a departing employee train their replacement. For reasons known only to them, they may fail to provide instruction on all aspects of the job. Later, after the departing employee has left, it can come back to haunt you when the new employee lets part of the job go undone. Here is a much better method.

Select a person in each area of your organization to be the ‘trainer’ of new employees for that area. This person should be very good at the job and have a good ability to communicate.

This sets a very high standard for incoming employees and, if there is a problem with the employee, you can ask the person who did the training to do some additional work to help get the improvement needed.

If you do not have one outstanding person, assign portions of the job to each of the new employee’s fellow workers so they can act as the trainer on that part. This team training method creates two outcomes. One; the new employees gets a well-rounded education and two; it makes the team responsible for the success or failure of new hires in their area.

All employees deserve a chance at success when they assume a new job. The best way to assure that happens is to match the person’s interests with the job in the beginning. Then, make certain they understand the organization and its idiosyncrasies during the orientation. Finally, provide the best training on your equipment and processes that you can. By doing these things well, you raise the bar for your organization and become a strong, successful firm.

Orienting the New Hire into Your Firm Part 4 in our series “Building a Successful Business One Employee at a Time.” Matching the Right Person to the Right Job is the third article in our series, Building a Successful Business One Employee at a Time. Attracting Quality Candidates and Conducting the Successful Interview can be reviewed in Issues 3 and 4 of our newsletter. In those articles information was provided to help you attract quality job candidates and then how to conduct a successful and effective interview.

Once the best candidates are determined the next step is to find your new hire by administering the Simmons Personal Survey. Survey results are analyzed here at Staff Development Services to determine if the candidate’s character tendency levels match what is needed to succeed in a particular job.

The information provided by the analysis of the survey results is more important to employers today than ever before. Interviews often produce inaccurate results. The survey shows that many people are very outgoing and can make a good “first impression” during the interview. But this high sociability often masks significant performance shortcomings while other people may perform better than they interview. There are actually classes to help people “interview well.” Information from references is often misleading. Negative information is often withheld or the former employer chooses to say little about the candidate. Resumes are often exaggerated, claiming successes that did not occur or inflating small tasks to look like major accomplishments.

Following analysis of the survey our clients receive a customized written report with recommendations. The accuracy of our recommendations is based on the effectiveness of this amazing assessment tool, the information the client provides to us about the job, and our expertise in analyzing the results achieved through years of study and practice.

The Simmons Survey is an assessment that measures a person’s emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is a function of the brain that is made up of emotional drives and behavioral tendencies that are motivated by our feelings. Research has shown that emotional intelligence, in most cases, is twice as important to job success as IQ or skills! The survey measures 13 character tendencies or areas of emotional intelligence using a bipolar scale for each. These areas are emotional energy, stress, optimism, self- esteem, work, detail, change, courage, direction, assertiveness, tolerance, consideration, and sociability.

But why is it important to be able to measure these character tendencies? By doing so we can match a potential candidate’s behavioral tendencies to the needs of a particular job environment. Or, with this accurate measurement, the areas of a person’s behavior that are sound or the areas that need improvement can be identified to help an existing employee operate most effectively in their present position.

The best way to explain how this works is by example. Consider this. A law firm is trying to fill a case manager position. Although there are 13 character tendencies intertwined to determine a person’s true behavior there are three key tendencies evaluated for the “ideal” case manager. This person must possess a high level of detail as they spend most of their time entering data that must be accurate, have moderate courage (i.e. this person is content doing work that they are comfortable and secure with as opposed to doing work that is risky) and moderate direction (i.e. they prefer to follow the procedures established by others as opposed to setting their own course of action.)

However, in this particular law firm it is determined that the case managers actually work more like a paralegal. This law firm gives their case managers more autonomy. Case managers must be able to set their course of action for each workday and work without close supervision. They are also expected to communicate with insurance adjusters, doctor offices, etc. Therefore, this particular case manager needs to have a stronger level of courage and direction than the “normal” case manager. Also, assertiveness becomes a key tendency to consider due to their need to communicate effectively with many different people. The more we know about the job environment the more successful we can be in matching the right person to the right job.

This is not a test that you can fail. Every human being is different and the survey is like an x-ray machine that lets us look inside a person to accurately assess job related strengths and weaknesses. Is he a hard worker or irresponsible, a loner or sociable, patient or impatient, positive or negative, careful or impulsive? In just a few minutes you can learn more about a potential candidate’s ability to perform from reading one of our hiring reports than you can by observing them for several months.

As one of our clients said, “Over the years your services have proved invaluable. When we hired in line with your recommendation every new hire was a success and when we hired against the test it turned out to be a painful experience.”

On the Lighter Side

A lady walks into a drug store and tells the pharmacist she needs some cyanide. The pharmacist said, ” Why in the world do you need cyanide? The lady then explained she needed it to poison her husband. The pharmacist’s eyes got big and he said, “Lady, I can’t give you cyanide to kill your husband! That’s against the law! They’ll throw both of us in jail and I’ll lose my license.”

Then the lady reached into her purse, pulled out a picture of her husband in bed with the pharmacist’s wife, and handed it to the pharmacist. The pharmacist looked at the picture and replied; “Well now, you didn’t tell me you had a prescription.”

Matching the Right Person to the Right Job is the third article in our series, Building a Successful Business One Employee at a Time. Attracting Quality Candidates and Conducting the Successful Interview can be reviewed in Issues 3 and 4 of our newsletter.

In those articles information was provided to help you attract quality job candidates and then how to conduct a successful and effective interview. Once the best candidates are determined the next step is to find your new hire by administering the Simmons Personal Survey. Survey results are analyzed here at Staff Development Services to determine if the candidate’s character tendency levels match what is needed to succeed in a particular job.

The information provided by the analysis of the survey results is more important to employers today than ever before. Interviews often produce inaccurate results. The survey shows that many people are very outgoing and can make a good “first impression” during the interview. But this high sociability often masks significant performance shortcomings while other people may perform better than they interview. There are actually classes to help people “interview well.” Information from references is often misleading. Negative information is often withheld or the former employer chooses to say little about the candidate. Resumes are often exaggerated, claiming successes that did not occur or inflating small tasks to look like major accomplishments.

Following analysis of the survey our clients receive a customized written report with recommendations. The accuracy of our recommendations is based on the effectiveness of this amazing assessment tool, the information the client provides to us about the job, and our expertise in analyzing the results achieved through years of study and practice.

The Simmons Survey is an assessment that measures a person’s emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is a function of the brain that is made up of emotional drives and behavioral tendencies that are motivated by our feelings. Research has shown that emotional intelligence, in most cases, is twice as important to job success as IQ or skills! The survey measures 13 character tendencies or areas of emotional intelligence using a bipolar scale for each. These areas are emotional energy, stress, optimism, self- esteem, work, detail, change, courage, direction, assertiveness, tolerance, consideration, and sociability.

But why is it important to be able to measure these character tendencies? By doing so we can match a potential candidate’s behavioral tendencies to the needs of a particular job environment. Or, with this accurate measurement, the areas of a person’s behavior that are sound or the areas that need improvement can be identified to help an existing employee operate most effectively in their present position.

The best way to explain how this works is by example. Consider this. A law firm is trying to fill a case manager position. Although there are 13 character tendencies intertwined to determine a person’s true behavior there are three key tendencies evaluated for the “ideal” case manager. This person must possess a high level of detail as they spend most of their time entering data that must be accurate, have moderate courage (i.e. this person is content doing work that they are comfortable and secure with as opposed to doing work that is risky) and moderate direction (i.e. they prefer to follow the procedures established by others as opposed to setting their own course of action.)

However, in this particular law firm it is determined that the case managers actually work more like a paralegal. This law firm gives their case managers more autonomy. Case managers must be able to set their course of action for each workday and work without close supervision. They are also expected to communicate with insurance adjusters, doctor offices, etc. Therefore, this particular case manager needs to have a stronger level of courage and direction than the “normal” case manager. Also, assertiveness becomes a key tendency to consider due to their need to communicate effectively with many different people. The more we know about the job environment the more successful we can be in matching the right person to the right job.

This is not a test that you can fail. Every human being is different and the survey is like an x-ray machine that lets us look inside a person to accurately assess job related strengths and weaknesses. Is he a hard worker or irresponsible, a loner or sociable, patient or impatient, positive or negative, careful or impulsive? In just a few minutes you can learn more about a potential candidate’s ability to perform from reading one of our hiring reports than you can by observing them for several months.

As one of our clients said, ” Why in the world do you need cyanide? The lady then explained she needed it to poison her husband. The pharmacist’s eyes got big and he said, “Lady, I can’t give you cyanide to kill your husband! That’s against the law! They’ll throw both of us in jail and I’ll lose my license.”

On the Lighter Side

A lady walks into a drug store and tells the pharmacist she needs some cyanide. The pharmacist said, ” Why in the world do you need cyanide? The lady then explained she needed it to poison her husband. The pharmacist’s eyes got big and he said, “Lady, I can’t give you cyanide to kill your husband! That’s against the law! They’ll throw both of us in jail and I’ll lose my license.” Then the lady reached into her purse, pulled out a picture of her husband in bed with the pharmacist’s wife, and handed it to the pharmacist. The pharmacist looked at the picture and replied; “Well now, you didn’t tell me you had a prescription.”

Conducting the Successful Interview Part 2 in our series “Building a Successful Business One Employee at a Time.” In another article, “Building a Successful Business One Employee at a Time” in which we discussed how to attract quality candidates to apply for positions with your firm. Following is the next article to help you build the optimum staff, “Conducting the Successful Interview.”

Top-notch companies all over the world have discovered the importance of spending time and effort up front when hiring employees to prevent the pain of turnover and termination down the road. Everyone is busy and there never seems to be enough time.

Because of this there is the tendency to get someone, anyone, into an unfilled position as quickly as possible. But if you spend time finding the right people you save time (and money) overall because of the decreased turnover. It turns into a win-win situation for everyone—you get a valuable, long- term employee and the employee is content with his/her new position.

It is extremely important for the interviewer be prepared for the interview. As the interviewer your most important task is to know about the job for which the applicant is applying. Those of you who utilize the John Beane Hiring Report know that our recommendations are based upon matching the character or behavioral tendencies of the prospective employee to what is needed to be successful in a particular job. If you know what character or behavioral tendencies are needed to succeed in a job prior to the interview you can develop a list of open-ended questions that will help you determine if this person’s character make-up matches the needs of the job.

Example: You are preparing your questions for an interview. The job requires many hours of overtime and some work on the weekend. Therefore, the applicant must have a strong commitment to work. One of your questions might be, “What would you do if you won a million dollars?” A person with a low work ethic will tend to talk about what vacations they would take or the fun they would have with so much money. A person with a high work ethic would talk of ways to use the money for further achievement. Or you could have them describe their typical day. You would listen for non-productive versus productive activities they pursued to fill their spare time.

Questions to determine a person’s level of self-esteem are also important. Many of the candidates sent to us have very high self-esteem. This is understandable as these are the people who usually interview well. They appear confident and self-assured giving the interviewer a false sense about them. As the John Beane Hiring Report points out high self-esteem is good but very high self-esteem can make a person hard to manage. A person’s self- esteem can be so high that they are delusional about their abilities and deny any personal faults or shortcomings.

If they deny them, then they certainly are not willing to make changes to keep from repeating their mistakes.

When trying to determine a person’s self-esteem you might ask them to describe their positive and negative qualities. People with lower self- esteem will easily verbalize their negative qualities. People with moderate to high self-esteem will easily verbalize his or her positive as well as negative qualities. But a person with very high self-esteem will have a very hard time describing any negative qualities.

Following are some things you need to keep in mind during the interview:

1. Keep control of the interview. If the candidate talks but gets off track when answering a question (his detail tendency is probably low making it difficult for him to stay focused so make a note of this) steer them back on course.
2. Ask every candidate for a particular job the same core questions. This enables you to receive consistent and comparable information between all candidates.
3. Use silence to your advantage. Waiting in silence can be awkward for both you and the candidate. But resist the temptation to speak up. You may inadvertently prompt the candidate with clues to the response you want to hear. It also gives you an idea how they respond under pressure (make a note about this, especially if the position is one that does place some pressure on the employee.)
4. Listen carefully to everything the applicant is saying, take good notes and keep them.
5. Always allow plenty of time and privacy for the interview.
6. Let the candidate know that you will let them know your decision one way or the other and an approximate timeline in which you plan to do so.

Good Luck!

On the Lighter Side

Reaching the end of a job interview, the interviewer asked the young lawyer fresh out of Harvard, “And what starting salary were you looking for?”

The lawyer said, “In the neighborhood of $200,000 a year, depending on the benefit’s package.” The interviewer said, “Well, what would you say to a package of 5-weeks vacation, 14 paid holidays, full medical and dental, company matching retirement fund to 50% of salary, and a new company car every 2 years, say, a red Corvette?”

The young lawyer sat up straight and said, “Wow!!! Are you kidding?” And the interviewer said, “Certainly, …but you started it.”