Putting “Heart” into Your Interviews Part 2

As a review from the last post…from a management stand point, during the course of employment, there can be all kinds of interviews like applicant interviews, performance interviews, employee satisfaction interviews, exit interview and others. There is one final component to consider.

All interviews require you to be clear on the outcome and the follow up or follow through on each situation. In applicant interviews you are deciding whether to hire or not. In investigative interviews you may be deciding whether to fire or not. Either way the third step that is often overlooked is the follow up (or fall out) that needs to take place to bring closure to the situation. Say you interview three great candidates for a position, decide on one, call her up and offer her the job. She accepts – done deal. What about the two you didn’t offer a job to? Who breaks the “bad news?" Or do you just wait until they call or email you and you can choose not to respond. In this day and age, is that something you want to risk? Did you consider that one of the applicants could be a close relative to your biggest customer? 

We don’t know what we don’t know, so why risk hard feelings when we can look at this situation as an opportunity rather than a curse? Being proactive with applicants can bring more good will to your company. I can’t tell you the number of times I have called applicants who weren’t offered a job who thanked me at the end of the call because I was professional, yet personable, gave them a true and straight forward reason for their non-selection and offered other alternatives for their job search. That’s what I call showing “heart” in the selection process. 

Again, if you want to find out how much “heart” your organization has in interview situations, give me a call.

Putting “Heart” into Your Interviews Part 1

Most of the time when I talk about interviews I am referring to hiring interviews but from a management stand point, during the course of employment, there can be all kinds.

Examples are:

• Applicant Interviews (sometimes 2nd and 3rd ones) 
• Job analysis interviews 
• Performance interviews 
• Investigative interviews 
• Disciplinary interviews 
• Employee Satisfaction interview 
• Succession planning interviews 
• Exit interviews 

Depending on the size of your organization you may not have cause to use all of these, but there are some common themes among them all. Today in part one, we’ll be talking about asking the right questions and doing more listening than talking.

All interviews require good, open ended questions. Remember, the goal of any interview is to gather information and you can’t get the information you need if the questions you are asking are irrelevant or even stupid. I will never forget the time early on in my career when I was asked if I squeezed the toothpaste from the middle or the top. What that had to do with my computer or accounting skills I still haven’t figured out. For applicant interviews, questions need to focus on the job requirements. For disciplinary interviews they need to focus on what occurred and how it relates to your policies, procedures and expectations. For exit interview questions, they should focus on what the company can change and improve upon for the current employees and future ones.

All interviews require a good amount of listening. I lost count of the number of different types of interviews I have sat in on with managers and supervisors that controlled the conversation by doing the majority of the talking. In each of these situations, the true goal is to solicit enough information to make a decision. You don’t get good information if you are the one doing all the talking. Listening to what the person is telling you and taking it to heart while equally weighing the facts adds up to a good employment decision.

Look for Part 2 next week about being clear on the outcome and follow-up with your interviews.

If you want to find out how much “heart” your organization has in interview situations, give me a call.

What a one Hour Consultation Can Do For You!

I offer a free one-hour consultation and I have a hunch that some business owners don’t take me up on it for one simple reason: they are afraid of what I might find out. They think it will be as painful as going to the dentist but instead of me asking “How often do you floss?” I will ask “How often do you check references or backgrounds on your new hires?”

Of course, when the dentist asks his or her question we usually wince and weakly say “I don’t.” The sad truth is that oftentimes, the answer would be the same for my question, too. The dentist then goes into all the benefits of flossing and gives us instructions and free floss before we leave. Then we have the freedom to take his or her advice and start a new healthier habit that will help prevent tooth decay. That is exactly what I do during my one hour consultation—give you instruction (and in many cases, the tools) to use to start a new healthier HR practice which will possibly prevent the “decay” of your workforce.

The main areas I examine during a consultation are:

Hiring Practices

Looking at your turnover and the reasons for it, making sure your job descriptions are up to date and truly reflect the job duties and qualifications needed for the job, having a legally compliant employment application, having proper screening questions, having behavior based interview questions, ensuring you are meeting equal opportunity requirements and retaining appropriate documentation on applications and much, much more.

Policies and Procedures 

Depending on the size and type of your organization, policies and procedures help ensure a safe and productive work environment. They also spell out your expectations. By reviewing your handbook or talking about how you handle such things as absences, employee conduct, safety, customer service, break time, overtime, holidays and vacations, I can offer solutions to keep you and your employees happy and productive.

Compliance with federal and state laws

Again, depending on the size of your organization, there are federal and state laws concerning employees that you are required to comply with. I review the laws that apply to your business and give you cost effective and streamlined ways to comply. After our consultation it is up to you to decide if the value of having me as your virtual HR advisor is beneficial to your organization. One hour with me—while seemingly scary at first—is much easier than an hour in the dentist chair and much less costly!

Stop putting it off – call today to schedule your free one hour consultation!

Let's Ring In the New Year

It’s my first post of the new year and—surprise!—I’m not going to talk about procrastination (which is clearly one of my favorite blog topics). I actually want to talk about the second-most popular topic for the New Year: CHANGE.

I’m not talking about changes you want to see in the economy, government laws or practices. I’m referring to changes that may be going on in your workplace that you may not yet be aware of.

Do you know your employees?

While the people in your workplace may seem to be mostly happy and productive employees, keep in mind that the pool of applicants we draw from for hiring is changing. That means that employee needs, goals and desires are changing.

Statistics show that:

• Since 2011 about 8,000 people are turning 65 every DAY and this trend will continue until 2029.
• Young people are transitioning into the workforce and earning money at a much later age than young adults 30 years ago.  
• The age at which young adults are hitting median wage earnings has increased from 26 to 30 between 1980 and 2012.
• Government projects suggest that Immigrants will account for as much as half of the net population growth over the next few decades.
• The number of women in the workforce with children under 6 rose from 63% in 2005 to 68% in 2011.
• Employee longevity is staying fairly flat within the private sector with the median years of tenure at 4.2 years.

Your employees are changing—are you?

This means that in order to stay with you as an employer, your happy and productive workers need and want more flexible schedules and time off due to health issues, family commitments or other outside interests.  Retirement, health savings accounts or other long term savings plans may be important to people as they move to different jobs for various reasons.  

The fact is, workers feel more valued and tend to stay longer with employers who offer benefits that better fit their needs. 

Give me a ring

As I mentioned earlier, I want to “talk” about these changes. That’s “HR speak” for “I don’t have all the answers.” But I am a creative HR consultant that can help look at your company’s situation and give you some creative solutions.  So let’s talk. Email me or give me a ring in the new year.

Applicant's Past Performance - Closest Thing to a Crystal Ball for Hiring Decisions

When hiring employees there is no crystal ball to confirm whether you have hired the best candidate.  There is a process you can use that will increase your odds of doing so the next time you hire an employee.

I’m frequently asked “What are the best questions to ask during an interview to ensure I get the best candidate for the job?”

My answer is simple:  Behavioral based questions aimed at the main competencies of the job.  I know that sounds like a bunch of HR techno babble.  Behavioral based interview questions are questions that ask the candidate to relate a previous work related behavior from their past experience.  Scientists agree with HR professionals in that past performance is the best indicator of future performance.  Hypothetical questions only get you the answer the applicant thinks you want to hear, whether it’s true or not. Behavioral based questions get to the heart of tasks, duties and activities the candidate has actually performed in the past and when structured correctly can even divulge a level of quantity and/or quality of their performance.  If followed with more probing questions behavioral based questions can reveal much about the candidate’s work experiences, skills and motivations.  Using behavioral based interview questions relating to the competencies of the job really is the best predictor of an applicant’s qualifications.

Three common job competencies are customer focus, dependability and initiative.  Using the behavior based interview process here are some generic questions with follow up probing questions for the three competencies.

Customer Focus:

Explain a time when you were not able to respond to a customer as quickly as promised.  How did you handle the situation?  What if anything would you do differently?

Tell me about a time when you received feedback either positive or negative from a customer. Why does this example stick out in your mind?  What did you do with that feedback?

Dependability:

We all have to work very hard at times.  Tell me about a time you started early or stayed late to accommodate your employer?  What specifically did you do?

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 high, how dependable are you?  Why do you say that?  Give me an example that illustrates your dependability.

Initiative:

Tell me about a time when none of your supervisors were available to guide or direct you on a particular project or problem.  How did you approach the situation so that you could complete your work?

Describe a situation when you identified a problem and took action to correct it rather than wait for someone else to do so.  How did it turn out?  What did you learn from it?

Besides using behavioral based questions, the other key to making the best hiring decision is accurately assessing the answers applicants supply.  Stay tuned for a future post when I share some thoughts on that part of the hiring process.