Workforce Solutions – Page 2

Conducting Effective Reference Checks

Conducting reference checks on your candidates can sometimes be considered unreliable. What are the key ingredients of an effective reference check? This is an important part of performance management. If you don’t get this right, you will hire the wrong people and you will pay the price for those decisions for months, or even years.

What Can Go Wrong?

Here are some of the reasons that many managers have little or no faith in the reliability of checking references:

The candidate only provides referees who will give them a glowing report.
The referee has a grudge against the candidate and slants their reference in an unfairly negative manner.
The referee gives you a positive report, because they are afraid of the legal ramifications of saying anything bad.
The referee is restricted by a company policy that limits what they can say about previous employees.

Is it any wonder that checking references has attained a reputation of being a far-from-exact science?

Opinion Versus Fact

Think back on the last time you were asked to give a reference for an ex-employee of yours. Chances are that most of the questions you were asked sought your opinions of that candidate. Questions like:

“What did you think of the person?”
“Did they do their job well?”
“Did they get on with other employees?”

Opinions can differ greatly and are not a reliable source of data upon which to make a decision as important as hiring someone (no matter what their level of responsibility in your organization).

If, however, you ask for facts (or to verify facts already given to you by the candidate), there is far less liability. A fact is a fact. It either is what it is, or it isn’t.

So, let’s turn this around and focus on the results that were achieved in the previous jobs, i.e. what was their performance?

Focus on Performance

What do you want in your new employee? Above all, you want someone who will produce the results expected of them.

What is the most valid way of determining their ability to produce results for you? Well, just look at their past record of results! If they have a proven record of results in a similar job (or environment) in the past, there is a very good chance they are capable of producing results in your job.

This is not guaranteed, of course. Reference checks are but one of the elements to consider when making a hiring decision.

Focusing on performance is the key factor to note in this entire article. It will make the difference between easy and effective reference checks, and checks that are difficult, or equivocal.

The Best Approach

Perform your reference checks after you have interviewed the candidate. Make sure that, during the interview, you established the candidate’s actual results achieved in past jobs. “Actual results” usually means numbers. It’s how many in what period of time. What were the statistics? The whole thrust of this part of the interview should be to look at their performance in the previous jobs they have held. This way, you have the specific results (numbers) that can be verified with the referee.

Who Do You Ask?

The basis of the reference check is to verify the candidate’s facts and figures with someone who is able to do so. But who are they?

The problem is that, without asking the candidate, you have no way of knowing who has the relevant information. You can’t simply ask the candidate, “Who can give you a reference?” If you do, you are inviting him or her to give you only people who will say nice things about them.

Rather than that, set the scene first by asking them a few pertinent questions about what they have achieved in the way of performance in their last few jobs. This could include such things as:

Statistical facts and figures (like their sales volume or the level of profit they generated).
Percentage increases in production (e.g. increased market share or reduction in outstanding debts)
New systems implemented (such as a new reporting system or a revitalized stock control process).

Now, having set the scene, the question that will evoke some really effective information is: “Who can verify these production results?” With this approach, a whole new world opens up for you. There are usually several people who can verify the candidate’s production results, including:

Their Manager (of course).
Their colleagues (who worked with them).
Their customers (who have no axe to grind).
Other department managers (who could observe their performance more objectively).

This wider range of names is particularly useful when the employee is still working at their last job and does not want you to contact their manager. This exercise should net you quite a few names to choose from. It is important to have choices, as you will see later in the discussion on cross-referencing.

The neat thing is that you don’t even have to mention the word “reference” when eliciting these names. They are simply people who can verify the candidate’s production record.

Avoiding the Problems

Now, let’s look at these problems we mentioned at the beginning and see how they stack up against this performance-focused approach to reference checks.

Problem 1: The candidate only provides referees who will give them a glowing report. This problem is almost completely eliminated with the above approach. By ignoring the list of referees supplied on the resume, you completely bypass the trap of only talking to people whom the candidate has carefully chosen as referees. If the people selected to verify the performance still have a tendency to give a positively slanted opinion (if asked), it is harder for them to slant the results. And, when referee statements are cross-referenced (see below), any holes that exist will show up.

Problem 2: The referee has a grudge against the candidate and slants their reference in an unfairly negative manner. Once again, this can be largely avoided if the referees are only asked about the results produced by their previous employee. They can still be negative, however, so this is where the cross-referencing comes in. For a start, you should do at least two reference checks per employer. If one of the two is not so good, do a third one as a cross-reference against the other two. If two out of three are good, the bad one can probably be put into the category of a “suspect reference”. You can always do more, if still uncertain. This is why it is a good idea to get several names of people who can verify the candidate’s results for each of the positions they have held (that we want to check). It gives you more choices, should cross-referencing become necessary.

Problem 3: The referee gives you a positive report because they are afraid of the legal ramifications of saying anything bad. Let’s face it, the reference check is seeking valid data upon which to make an important business decision. If the data is wrong, you can make a costly mistake. It is vital that you get accurate information. If the referee you are talking to is one of those people who is afraid of saying the wrong thing, you will find they are far more comfortable simply confirming facts and figures. They will only become hesitant when asked something that invites their opinion.

Problem 4: The referee is restricted by their company policy that limits what they can say about previous employees. Even this situation will at least be partly resolved when the emphasis is placed on the previous employee’s actual results on the job. Companies that have such restrictive policies generally don’t mind verifying production statistics, or confirming what positions the employee held and what functions they performed. The normal scenario here is that the restrictions limit the referee to only stating the employment duration and the former employee’s job functions. You can generally get more information, however, by digging deeper on the functional aspects. For example, “So, he was involved with collecting outstanding debts. Did the amount of outstanding debts decrease while he held the job?”

Conclusion

With a performance-focused approach to reference checks, you can definitely obtain valid information upon which to base your hiring decision. The reference check is, by no means, the main deciding factor. If done right, however, it can contribute powerful data to the decision process.

Tips on Giving Effective Constructive Criticism

As a manager, it’s your responsibility to give your employees feedback about their work. Unfortunately, communicating when and how something could have been done better is part of that task. It takes empathy and tact to give criticism in a manner that won’t be construed as a personal attack, but rather as an encouragement to improve. In short, giving constructive criticism is a skill, and it’s one all managers must master in order to get the best out of their employees. Fortunately, skills can be learned. Read on to learn some best practices for giving constructive criticism.

Put yourself in your employee’s shoes. Before addressing any issue, take a moment to put yourself in your employee’s shoes. Chances are he isn’t aware he’s making mistakes; in fact, he’s probably doing his best. Think back to an occasion when somebody gave you constructive criticism that really helped you in your career, and do your best to be as helpful to your employee.

Choose the time and place carefully. Being criticized is never fun. Choose the time and place to speak to your employee carefully. At an appropriate time when he’s not too busy, ask for a one-on-one meeting to discuss some issues. This will give him the opportunity to receive the criticism in private, without all of his colleagues listening in.

Be aware of your voice and body language. Somebody receiving criticism can adopt a defensive attitude—it’s a natural reaction when one’s attacked. That’s why you must use strong but non-confrontational body language. Respect your employee’s personal space while maintaining a confident posture and good eye contact. Breathe deeply and calmly, and don’t raise your voice. By being assured but not confrontational, you send the message that you’re in the right, yet without backing your employee into a corner.

Comment objectively on behavior. Focusing on actual behaviors that have negative consequences, instead of addressing characteristics you subjectively perceive to be the problem. For example, instead of assuming your employee is lazy and therefore misses deadlines, it’s far more constructive to focus on the measurable issue, i.e. the fact that he misses deadlines.

Use “I statements” to request specific changes for future occasions. It’s much easier to accept criticism when it’s delivered in the form of a request from the speaker’s point of view. So for example, instead of saying, “You always make a lot of mistakes in your report,” you could say, “I spend a considerable amount of time correcting your reports. In the future, could you please review your work for errors before submitting it?” This still gets the message across, but without sounding accusatory.

Highlight something positive first, carefully lead into the negative issue, and end on a compliment. It’s always advisable to let your employee know you noticed what he did well before launching into what he can improve on. You should also express confidence that your employee can make the requested change. For example, you could say, “I really appreciate your attention to detail in this report, and the first section is outstanding. However, the second section needs more work. I’m confident that with another take, you can get it right.” By complimenting your employee, you take the sting out of the criticism included in the message.

Offer your assistance. Constructive criticism is useless if your employee doesn’t know how to improve. Carefully discuss with him what the reasons are for the mistakes or issues in the first place; then find ways for him to improve. For example, if your employee’s reports are full of errors because he’s working too quickly and doesn’t review properly, encourage him to take more time on the next report so he can be more methodical, as well as review and if necessary, make revisions.

Check in. Remember to check in with your employee when he’s next working on a similar task. Ask him if he believes he’s improving. If he’s still facing obstacles, give him the encouragement and assistance he needs to overcome them.

Give praise. When your employee has addressed the unwanted behavior and made the desired improvements, make sure to thank him for his efforts and compliment his achievements.

Giving constructive criticism is a necessary part of any manager’s job. These best practices will help you do so in an effective, empathetic manner so both your employee and you benefit from the improved results.

How to Manage a Negative Employee

You know the one: he comes in grumpy, and within minutes the atmosphere of the entire office has sunk like a brick. No one wants to work with him, no one likes to talk to him, and people go out of their way to avoid him in the halls.

Negative employees can wreak havoc on a small business. They not only decrease the productivity of everyone else, but they make your team dread coming into work. Negatively is like any virus: it spreads easily.

Start By Talking With Them

If you haven’t approached them before, start by talking with them about their attitude. They might have a specific reason why they’ve been so unhappy, and if you can fix it easily this is the best way to turn them around.

Ask them specific questions.

Is their attitude related to something specific at work? Are they having problems at home? Are they too stressed out with their tasks? Finding the root cause is important. Of course, if they’re just a negative person in general you won’t be able to do much.

Keep It Private

It’s important not to chastise the person in front of others. When you talk to them about their attitude, do it in the privacy of your office. No one likes an audience when they’ve done something wrong, and making it public will likely make them act out even more.

Clearly Communicate Your Expectations

Make sure the employee knows that their attitude is unacceptable. Everyone in your business should be treated with courtesy and respect. If they don’t have something nice or constructive to say, then they should keep quiet. Many negative employees start or perpetuate gossip in a company. And, gossip is incredibly toxic. If this person is contributing to the gossip mill, then they need to stop immediately. Gossip creates animosity, tension, and stress, and your team doesn’t need that.

Communicate Consequences

It’s important to be clear that there will be consequences if they don’t change their behaviour. If there’s no improvement after a certain time period, you might have to let them go. The threat of job loss can be a strong motivator for change, so if all else fails then make sure they know this is an option.

The Characteristics of a Good Leadership Team

The ultimate measure of a senior leadership team’s success is the organization’s results. And yet some companies, due to favourable market conditions, do quite well in spite of their dysfunctional leadership teams. Imagine what could happen if the team at the top could get its act together. Is your leadership team effective? Evaluate them on these nine attributes.

A meaningful purpose: They have a clear and compelling reason to work together. Executive team members are each responsible for a specific company function. One could argue the CEO should be the glue that coordinates the activities, but everyone’s primary concern should be their area of responsibility. In high-performance teams, a commitment to the team’s purpose should be at least as important as the commitment to the purpose for the area each member leads.
Shared goals: The team needs to focus on a set of outcomes that all members are committed to achieving and that require contribution by everyone. If it’s truly a team goal, everyone will feel equally responsible for its achievement. These are not necessarily the same as the company’s goals.
The right mix: Team members have complementary skills, experiences, and styles necessary for fulfilling the necessary roles and responsibilities. People know each other’s strengths, weaknesses, preferences, and aversions. They use this knowledge to create synergy. Members see the value of each person’s presence on the team. There’s a sense of equality among all the players.
Strong interpersonal relationships: People can be themselves because they genuinely like each other and will do what they can to look out for and support their team-mates. Members trust each other and are trustworthy. The cohesiveness of the team is obvious to people outside the group.
Helpful operating principles: These agreed upon ways of working together might include a shared set of values, processes for making decisions, ways of communicating within the team and to other employees, and tracking activities.
Problem solving: The team recognizes when a problem exists, analyzes it, identifies alternatives, and works through conflicts. Once the decision is made, everyone commits to supporting it. Often this is best demonstrated by someone’s willingness to raise a thorny issue in the first place and in the members’ willingness to fully engage in finding a resolution to the problem.
High levels of candour: People say what needs saying in a direct and respectful manner. Members are receptive to hearing tough messages without becoming defensive. Heated discussions are viewed not as a problem but rather as a positive activity as long as the discussion stays focused on issues or behaviours rather than on personalities.
Mutual accountability: Members hold themselves and others to the commitments they have made. While the CEO often has the primary responsibility for holding employees accountable for keeping their promises, each person shares in this activity.
Measuring the important: Effective teams track those things that are most important to their success— progress on key initiatives, performance results, or even behaviours expected of each other and take action when things are not meeting expectations. Carve out time at your next executive off-site meeting to discuss the effectiveness of the team and determine how to strengthen its performance.

How to Do Effective Performance Appraisal

The annual performance appraisal is an opportunity to enhance employee performance and create greater success for the company and the individual.

Start with vision:

It’s important to start with vision: the company’s and the employee’s. What is the company vision? The company vision should be compelling and known by staff. When staff don’t know the owner’s vision for the company it is hard for them to help move it forward. Having a clear and compelling vision that employees can buy into provides a foundation for success.

But what drives the individual isn’t the boss’ vision, the company’s vision, but their own compelling vision.

Employees can embrace the company vision but …
True success comes from within and from personal vision.
Personal vision should be compelling and tied into the company vision.
Do you know your employees’ dreams and visions for their lives and career?

Take time to create a vision:

If the employee hasn’t thought about their vision, take the time to create a vision with them. Does their vision, their passion tie into the company vision? Can you as the supervisor help the employee to achieve their vision? What if their vision is your job? Well, that’s great. As supervisors, managers and leaders part of our role is mentoring and developing our employees. It’s great to have employees that are motivated to learn and grow. It’s also great to have employees that know your job and can do it competently.

Compelling visions are personal, written in the present tense, as if … they are happening now, and point to an exciting future. Encourage your staff to write their own compelling vision and share it with you.

Our current appraisal framework:

Often the manager talks about issues that the employee didn’t know was coming. Today we are talking about how to reframe the experience for both the employee and the manager. With the manager as a coach and partner committed to the employee’s success the environment can shift. The goal is to reframe the experience, creating a positive, goal-oriented environment that thrives on success and enhancing performance. In working with many groups of people solving problems, when they focused on what was going well and built upon it they were more successful than when they worked on what the problems were that they were having and what they needed to improve. In focusing on solutions, they ultimately identified the things that needed improvement as well.

It’s important to recognize your feelings about performance appraisals and to imagine the employee’s perspective.

History of being an uncomfortable experience.
Reframe the experience and create a positive, goal-oriented environment that thrives on success, enhancing performance.
An opportunity to tune into the person and find out what is going on with them.
Create a plan for the upcoming year.
Most individuals (most employees) want to be successful.

Use coaching skills to develop success and excellence:

Where are we at now? After you have created a compelling vision, find out where we are at right now. Using five key coaching questions you can quickly get to where the employee is at. In these questions you have the opportunity to create powerful positive energy, find out what the gaps are and what the resources needed are. In talking about what would be ideal you are also focusing a bit back on the vision, but you are also pointing in the direction that you need to go – so how do we get there?

When meeting with a staff member:

Be present
Tune into them and tune out everything else
See their greatness

Use Five Coaching Questions:

What are the positives?
What makes the positives happen?
What is it that would be ideal?
What needs to improve?
What resources do you need to succeed?

As the supervisor, I see my role as one of supporting my staff so that they can do their job. I’m their coach, their success partner and the person that is helping to get them the resources they need to do their job. As the director of an outdoor center, my job was to get the clients there, but it was also to make sure that our resources were there for the client; that we had the infrastructure we needed to provide the service, the ropes course, trained staff, food for meals, etc.

Create a plan for excellent performance:

You, the supervisor, become the partner or the coach – coaching for success. In creating a plan focused on success for the employee, the manager begins to shift the paradigm to one of employee and coach/partner. As supervisors, our role is to build successful teams and we have to have successful team members in order to do that. If we focus on creating success we are more likely to create it. Focus on the positive, the solutions. What’s going right, how do we create more of it? In working with teams I have found that when I focus on what they are doing well and how we do more of it – we build on our success.

When we create goals that are SMART, we can measure them, and track their progress. If goals are soft, not measurable, it becomes difficult to progress the plan or give any feedback. So, how do we make them measurable? Measurable is countable; how many, when, who?

Goal planning:

Goals tie into the company vision and the employees’ vision.
Goals point to an exciting future.
They are positive, specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bounded.

Tips for setting goals:

Start with the RESULT in mind.
Set SMART goals.
Make it easy to see the next steps.

SMART Goals:

SMART Goals have certain attributes that make them measurable. When you can measure the goal you then know if you are attaining it. Goals should be results or outcome oriented and not process oriented.

Specific:

Has clear deliverables or results

Measurable:

Can be counted: How many? How much? Who?

Attainable:

Can be attained at least 80%

Relevant:

Important to the people you serve, your future viability and relevant to your vision and values.

Time-Bounded:

Think big, but it’s a 12-month plan, an annual plan

A goal example could be that a sales staff member might have a sales goal of increasing personal sales by 20% during the year. As annual goals are typically big, it’s important to break them down into smaller steps. This sales goal can also be the foundation for creating a plan to accomplish the goal as follows:

A certain number of cold calls
A systematic follow-up plan for each lead
Direct mail, advertising – what are the specifics that are going to create the success?

Build in accountability:

Building in accountability in your annual success plans is the key to success. How many performance appraisals have you had or have you done that didn’t get looked at until the next year?

You need to meet with people regularly and review the goals. It’s unfair to come at a staff person at the end of the year and say you didn’t accomplish what we outlined in your plan. Yes, you can accomplish some things just by writing down the goal, but the level of accomplishment is usually lower than what we want in our companies.

The key to success is building in accountability through regular meetings, weekly or monthly.
We often fall short on keeping a plan alive.
Regular meetings that keep focus on the plan and keep it moving forward.
Celebrate success, write down accomplishments, and build on success.

Monthly accountability:

Meet with staff at least monthly and review the plan. Bringing out the plan and talking about it keeps it alive. If it is never mentioned it gives staff the impression that it wasn’t that important and they don’t need to work on the goals outlined. Remember, the goals outlined are focused on creating better results for the company. You want that. Focus on the plan. At the monthly meeting spend time to:

Review the vision
Review the accomplishments (what’s going right?)
Review the goals
Score each goal – give it a percentage; 60%, 85%

When a goal is falling short, use coaching skills to help figure out what the problem is and how to change it. Does the leadership need to shift to provide more supervision, training, and direction?

You are looking for success of at least 80%. If the person is in their own way, do they need to make a shift in their feelings, beliefs, paradigm, to move forward and get themselves out of the way? Are they choosing not to make the necessary shift? It’s an opportunity to talk about choices that we make. We each operate from a place of personal responsibility. We are responsible for ourselves, our actions.

Measurable goals can be scored.
Score the goals each month.
If the goal is below 80% talk about what’s in the way. Is the individual in their own way?
Go back to the five coaching questions.

Create a partnership:

The monthly review of the PLAN gives you the opportunity to really check-in with staff and support them in developing success. It also prevents the annual performance review dread. They know you are invested in their success as well as that of the company. This is powerful. It develops you as a leader and partner of the staff member and lets you know where the focus needs to be. It also creates a regular stream of communication – both ways that can only improve results. Use the five coaching questions:

What’s going right?
What makes it right?
What’s the ideal, the vision?
What’s not quite right now?
What are the resources needed?

Coach them to succeed.

Handling poor performance:

I believe that coaching skills can help you as a supervisor create better success. When there is poor performance the coaching questions give you an opportunity to build success. But you have also built a framework for having real conversations. We are all adults, and we each have personal responsibility and make choices about our behaviour. If you do discipline or progressive discipline in your organization, you need to have a clear policy on it and employees need to be informed of the policy. They also need to know the expectations and job responsibilities. And with that foundation, believe you can have real conversations about their behaviour and choices and the position it puts you in. Your behaviour as a supervisor is a consequence of their behaviour.

I’ve had this conversation with staff in a union shop, in a supervisory session that involved poor performance. It went something like: Fred, you have great skills and talents that we see here, and you also know why we’re here – you didn’t show up for work and you didn’t call, it’s considered a no show/no call. It puts me in a position where I have to take action, and if it continues then I have to continue taking actions. You are responsible for you and you are making choices for how you handle your position.

And in having these conversations – it’s important to remember that our goal is success and the employee’s goal is to be successful also. Employee retention is important to everyone.

Go back to the coaching questions – it gets them talking about what is going right, what their vision for success is and what is in their way.

Help staff to identify limiting behaviours, how they are in their own way, and shift their paradigms to get out of the way.

To create the success you want, keep focused on your goals

Staying focused on your goals and those of your employees keeps the momentum going. As the supervisor, you can create a positive and encouraging environment and create a performance culture.