Building a Successful Team

Transcription

1 Building a Successful Team OctoClean s tips on hiring quality employees By Matthew Stowe, Chief Operating Officer at OctoClean

2 Building a Successful Team Building a Successful Team There is a connection between fear and a person's potential to succeed. A simple acronym for false evidence appearing real. The trepidation that comes with ascending and achievement is systemic in the workplace today. Work environments are managed by fear and anger. Allowing people to succeed is another management philosophy. This starts with finding a great team of people. The most important attribute of a great team member is courage. This is not an easy thing to measure but can be discovered through a detailed recruiting and interviewing process. In organizations that thrive there are more courageous decision makers then factory line workers. There is a place for them both and all will be respected for the contributions they give. Decision making is key. It takes courage to make a decision because it can result in great things to terrible things and everything in between. Fear is the reason leaders stop, the reason employees defer and the reason companies die. When recruiting a team you will find people at different levels of courage. It is difficult to work through the masks of fear. In an interview a candidate comes donning his shield (resume), sword (letters of recommendation) and shining armor (years of experience and fast talk). It is all theatrics. Most interviewing consists of a lot of huffing and puffing of egos. You want to sell your company because you need someone to fill the position and they listen because they need a job. After all they are the knight in shining armor and you want to have them at the round table. The question is the great equalizer. The first thing is to ask questions, a lot of questions. In order to ask great questions you will need to know what to ask and where to ask from. Here are some tips to better recruiting and interviewing.

3 Building a Successful Team Know who are looking for It is. What kind of janitor do you want? You need a SEARCH model. S = SKILLS (Ability to think on their feet, Ability to...) E = EXPERIENCE (3+ years experience supervising a janitorial crew...) A = ATTITUDES (Keeps emotions in check,friendly...) R = RESULTS (Promoted from entry level to supervisory position...) C = COGNITIVE ABILITIES (Fast learner, Can think on their feet...) H = HABITS (Prompt, Goals setter...) Start at skills and ask yourself what you want if the person was a perfect fit. This is time consuming and is where most managers fail their company. A road map for your trip to successful placement is a SEARCH model for every role. Once the SEARCH is completed take highlight your top three attributes for each area. These will be your have-to s. This is very important as they will be used for the rest of the process. Decide where to look Ads in the local newspaper, Craigslist, referrals from other employees or friends and family. Wherever you decide to throw the net the goal is to get candidates to hold up against your SEARCH. This will be decidedly more difficult with friends and family which is why I discourage the hiring of family members and friends. It takes much more to manage an employee relationship when the person is also your sibling or best friend. The reason most new managers choose family is because they haven t a process to find people outside of the family. In other words they don t know how and they are afraid.

4 Building a Successful Team Create an interview process There are as many processes for interviewing as there are people to hire. The most important result of your process is that you have a way of choosing people the same way each time. Do not change your process if the person is a friend or relative or if they were referred to you by a trusted advisor. This will ensure you can measure the effectiveness of your process and initiate changes if it is not. Consider these types of things when developing our interview process: How many people will you hire? What is the compensation for the position? Will the role be front line or customer facing? Will interacting with people be done in person or over the phone? Is the role more structured or creative? Depending on the answers to these questions you may decide to conduct: Face-to-face interview- Completed with the candidate and yourself at your office. This interview takes the longest amount of time to conduct (30-90 minutes) Telephone interview- Best used to confirm information and to ask some basic questions about their back ground, availability etc. (5-15 minutes) Multi-candidate interviews (Group Briefing)- This interview is a very effective way to weed out the people that are not a fit for higher pressure positions. It also allows for you to get detailed information to many people quickly. This is highly recommended. Multi interviewer interview- When you do not trust your own judgement or if the candidate will be working in close proximity to others you want to use this method.

5 Building a Successful Team Process: 1. Conduct a phone interview to confirm information on an application or resume 2. Invite the candidate to a company group briefing where more information will be given 3. Explain that at the conclusion of the briefing there will be a 5 minute mini-interview. 4. A decision will be made at the conclusion of the 5-minute interview to invite the candidate to a face-to-face interview (or not). If so start pre-employment assessments and checks. 5. Conduct background check, credit check, DMV, drug test and reference checks. If all checks out continue with face-to-face. 6. Face-to-face- During the interview you will be asking questions to determine if they fit your top (3) items for each area of the SEARCH. They also will have questions but be careful not be the one getting interviewed, This is your interview not theirs. Be okay with stopping the interview at anytime if you feel it is not a fit. 7. Begin the On-boarding process. If you were hiring a sales person or CEO the process would greatly differ. Repetition is key. Throughout your process check-in with a trusted advisor to discuss concerns with applicants and the process itself. Development of the Employee You have spent so much time ensuring this is the right person, now pay attention to them and help them achieve their goals. Every person has a different definition for success and it is your job to find out what it is. Of course if their goals do not align with your company goals it may be a problem. Typically managers manage by emergency and give little time to employees after they have been hired. This results in compliant and rebellious-like employee behavior, like showing up late or leaving without

6 Building a Successful Team notice. The actual job of a manager is to maintain relationships with staff and determine how you can help them achieve what they want. It is time consuming. The return on the time investment is not quickly realized but when it is there is no substitute for it. No amount of fear or incentive management can replace an employee that is intrinsically motivated. Tips for a manager developing an employee: Set a time for 30 minutes each week where you meet with the employee. This is referred to as a Supervisory Conference. During these meetings you discuss what they are frustrated with, development needs and most importantly a time to level with each other. If the employee does not tell you what they are feeling they will tell someone else and that can result in inner office gossip, distrust and poor retention. Help them achieve their goals. If you don't know what they want for themselves you have no way of helping them achieve. As their boss you have more financial control over their achievement then anyone else. If they put in the effort to achieve you will give them the resources to help. This includes training, mentoring, supervising and leadership. As they achieve they help you achieve which provides you a healthy bottom line and the chance to increase wages. A true win-win. Use the SEARCH Model to develop them. The employee should have a copy of the SEARCH so they can find their weaknesses and begin with your support to make them into strengths. Change is hard but if they want to change it makes it much easier. Have a process and fail. If you fail once, try again and again with other candidates before abandoning the process. Developing a team that will achieve and help you get where you want to go may take years. Give to your employees and they will give back!!

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