New Year’s Resolutions for the Smart Employers

Posted on January 15, 2011 in Consulting

The holidays offer a great opportunity for reflection on the prior year and resolution for the next. In that same spirit, this first Employment Matters newsletter of 2011 offers your company’s human resources department reflection on what should be done in the New Year and resolution on how to do it.

Hire with patience

Hopefully, economic growth and job creation will increase substantially in 2011. As employers begin to hire (again), they should take the necessary amount of time to pinpoint the best-fitting employee for the company. Unfortunately, we live in an age of technology that substitutes instant messaging for careful thought. Yet a favorable and beneficial decision takes patience and commitment, especially when it concerns future employees. Employers should resist the temptation to make quick hiring decisions and use a well-defined, methodical approach instead.

In the hiring process, every candidate should complete an application, even if the candidate gives a resume. An employer can learn much from an employee’s handwritten application that is not revealed on a self-submitted document.

Additionally, the company should contact the candidate’s references. A friend once shared an amusing story about the reference check that his new employer ran before finalizing the hire. My friend had previously been self-employed for several years before seeking employment with this new company. In compliance with their hiring practice, the new company called my friend as a reference for himself. Although we had a good laugh over it, the humor holds a valuable lesson: do not bend from the rules of your hiring process.

Businesses should also take precautions against hiring an overly qualified candidate. Read More The recession created terrible job losses, and many very qualified persons are seeking employment. Yet overall, an employer that attempts to get a steal with a seriously overqualified candidate will probably lose on the deal. Yet in the rush to get back to work, some people may take jobs beneath their capabilities and below their earning potential for temporary income while searching for better options. Some candidates may even understate their prior income when they know the new job will not pay as much. Calling references to confirm rate of pay could help an employer make the right decision.

Although such careful and deliberate methods may seem unnecessary and redundant, hiring with patience means hiring the most fitting candidate, guaranteeing the company’s benefit.

Meaningful and Fair Employee Performance Reviews

Every employer should conduct meaningful and fair performance reviews on an annual (if not semi-annual) basis. Employers should tailor the form towards the position being reviewed. A generic form applied to all employees usually proves ineffective. Imagine how a company that wrote “not applicable” to certain criteria on a performance review, rather than changing the form to remove the unnecessary criteria, would be perceived by a jury in a wrongful termination case. In addition, the evaluation form should be drafted with input from the managers that will conduct the reviews to ensure consistent application.

When fitting, a company should set objective standards to create uniformity in employee reviews. Multiple supervisors reviewing the same employee should reach consensus before putting their thoughts into writing. Supervisors reviewing a group of employees in the same position should be consistent with their evaluations. An overly generous reviewer looking to protect his team can skew results. The opposite extreme – the ‘hard grader’ – may cause valuable employees to leave. Consistent standards give the process credibility.

Take Corrective Action Now, Not Later

Every year, we help many employers through difficult situations that arise in the workplace. Fairly often, the company wishes to discuss a ‘problem’ employee before making a decision. In those conversations, we often hear a manager say, “We should have fired him last year when we had the chance.” In other words: last year, the employee did something very unacceptable that would have been grounds for termination, yet someone decided to give them a second chance.

So our advice is harsh, yet simple: second chances rarely work when the employee’s underlying misconduct reflects dishonesty or substantially poor judgment. Few employers can teach ethics and integrity.

A company should consider whether a performance improvement plan needs to be given to an employee as part of the performance review process. The performance review might include serious counseling about prior problems that could lead to further discipline. Do not be afraid to terminate an employee who is a disadvantage to your company.

Read your Employee Handbook and Policies

If you have not had the displeasure of being deposed – questioned under oath by an opposing lawyer – let me say congratulations. If that day comes, though, I can assure you that in any employment-related case, the plaintiff’s lawyer will ask when you last read the company’s employee handbook. You would knock that lawyer back in his seat if you could honestly answer that you read it in January. An even better answer would be that you read the employee handbook and make revisions, if any are needed, every January as a habit.

This New Year, as other resolutions fall to the wayside, dedicate yourself to these four first-rate employment practices. Your company will thank you for New Years to come.