Would You Hire An Ex-Con?

Many of my seminars are to people in the building trades, and the question often comes up as to whether or not to consider people for employment who have a criminal past. You need to know if it was an arrest versus a conviction, and if it was a felony versus a misdemeanor. Remember that not all criminal punishments are created equal, and different laws in different cities and states carry more weight. You need to know what the exact circumstances were before you even consider hiring them. You’ll want to know if there was any violence or weapons involved. Second, you will want to know how the crime relates to the specific job they are applying for. If they are driving a vehicle or operating equipment, was the conviction for drunk driving? If they are handling money, was the conviction for theft, forgery, or embezzlement? Finally, you need to know how recent the conviction was, and what time was served, if any. If a person was convicted 17 years ago and has a clean record since, I would weigh that in my decision. People do change (but not always), and I have been given many examples from audience members on how ex-convicts turned out to be their best employees because they were given a second chance. A careful reference and thorough background check should be done before hiring.

Does This Resemble You?

When I present seminars for frontline people, and ask them what their biggest time waster is, I often hear their boss is ranked in the top three on their list. It seems the boss keeps interrupting and giving them new demands and new priorities. People tell me they are assigned a top priority, then the next or same day, before they finished the task, they get a new "top priority." As a boss, you must be proficient at letting your people know what your top priorities are, or they get frustrated, confused, and stressed. Of course, you have every right to assign new priorities, but let them know it is okay to put the other priority on the back burner for awhile. Remember stress leads to burnout, which leads to turnover.

Some other frustrations I hear, relative to time is that when the boss is out of the office and then calls in with a new demand, but does not fully explain what they want done. This is delegation without explanation, and employees feel it is just "dumping." Another frustration is when the boss calls them at home at night to discuss work "stuff." Only do this in emergencies. Remember, their job is not 24 hours a day.

A Key Secret To Increase Employee Productivity

In one of my recent seminars on "Turning Around Turnover" we were discussing the flaws and foibles of most performance appraisals. One attendee stated they stopped giving performance appraisals, and instead gave training needs assessments. The idea was to find out what training it would take to improve their performance instead of the usual method of telling people where they needed improvement.

At the end of the training needs assessment, they asked staff to list any barriers to performance. I went bonkers (in a positive way) because he was right on target. In my seminars, I draw a large T on a flip chart and put the word "aids" on the top left of the T and the word "barriers" on the top right of the T. I state that when you have a performance problem, always refer to this diagram. My thinking is if you give employees what they need to do the job such as training, equipment, technology, and take away the barriers, they will do the job. This is a key secret to performance and productivity.

Who's Checking Up On You?

Many of you do background checks before you hire people. Now, job seekers are doing background checks on companies before they decide to accept a job. By going to websites, such as Jobster, LinkedIn, and Vault, they can find candid comments from current or past employees about your company or organization. And, they can contact individuals to delve into more details. Jobster is averaging about 600 postings about various companies each week.

This obviously can work both ways, depending on how your employees feel about you and what they may have posted. Some of the comments are really blunt. People can get the real scoop about company culture, salaries, dress codes, and the interview process. This should get you thinking about firing any toxic managers who are driving people out the door. These sites can also encourage people to apply, if there are many positive comments. The unfortunate thing is that people’s comments are often their perception and may not be the actual truth. And, of course, some just have an axe to grind.

Speaking English Only

My seminar on "Immigrant and Ethnic Workers" as you can imagine, is keeping me very busy these days. Since many of you are using a large number of immigrant workers, pay attention to this, and discuss it with those that do the hiring. In 2000, just under 18% of our population or about 45 million people spoke a language other than English at home. About 10 million spoke little or no English.

With this in mind, realize that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is closely watching hiring decisions based on language requirements. National origin and language discrimination lawsuits are rising. If you don't hire someone based on an accent, it better be for a job where that accent is interfering with their ability to communicate in English which is critical (i.e English teacher, air controller) to the position. Don't impose a language fluency standard that is too high for the position for which they are applying. Don't create blanket policies for the same fluency on all jobs, when some jobs do not need it. Also, be careful about the English only rules you create. These rules are only allowed by the courts in certain narrow situations, where employees must communicate with customers, co-workers, and bosses that speak English only.

Get Rid Of Those Time Vampires

In my time management seminar, "How To Manage Your Time When You Wear Too Many Hats" I talk about your biggest time wasters and those time vampires--people or things that suck the productivity out of you. Try running a contest to get rid of them. Make it a short contest, over just a few days, so the contest in itself does not become a time waster. Ask your employees for suggestions on which are the worst time vampires, such as wasted meetings, useless training, senseless time wasting reports, stupid needless systems, dumb processes, etc. Ask them specifically why and how it wastes time, and how the policy, process, or system needs to be changed to make people more productive, and in effect, happier. Then have people vote on which was the best suggestion. Pay a reward for the best suggestion, and then make the specific changes. Let everyone know the change came as a result of their input. You not only have helped people to be more productive, you have also shown them their opinion is important and that their opinion counts.

You Never Told Me

Did you ever stop to think of how many times you have had informal conversations with employees where you gave them quick, corrective feedback? How many of these situations do you document? You observe an employee doing something that you must correct on-the-spot, you tell them, and move on. You need to rethink those situations. Documentation can be crucial in a lawsuit, even if it is a very brief encounter. Simply create a quick memo and give it to the employee, keeping a copy for their file. Of course, you can do it by e-mail, but they can say they never got it. Cover yourself! You will never have to worry about an employee saying that it was just informal conversation of no consequence, or just a chat between friends.