by Mike Yoder | Business Resource, Culture, General, Hiring
Did you know most hiring managers decide whether they are going to hire someone in the first 3 minutes of an interview? And that is not enough time to conduct an effective interview. In fact, ineffective job interviews often lead to bad hires and that is a costly proposition when you factor in training costs, wages, and lost productivity when you have to do it all over again.
In order to improve your odds, you need to be prepared. Conducting a structured interview requires time and forethought. Some studies suggest businesses spend at least one hour preparing for an hour-long interview. It’s well worth the investment.
Here are the Top Ten tips for conducting more effective job interviews – and hiring the right person.
1. Have a current, accurate and enticing job description.
Job descriptions should identify the specific knowledge, skills, and abilities that are critical for the candidate to succeed at the job. What critical need does the company have, and how will the candidate fulfill that need? Make sure to also identify the personality traits required for the specific job. Once you’ve performed the job analysis, develop the interview questions based upon the determined criteria.
2. Create a structured interview process.
Structured interviews help ensure all candidates are treated similarly, and research has indicated they are more effective than unstructured job interviews. To create a structured interview:
- Ask every candidate the same interview questions, and plan follow-up questions to likely responses.
- Evaluate candidates using an objective and thorough rating scale.
- Provide training to all interviewers to enable them to conduct interviews using a consistent method and tangible tools to evaluate candidates so they aren’t relying solely on instinct.
3. Ask behavioral questions.
Asking hypothetical or open-ended questions like “how would you deal with an angry coworker?” or “what are your strengths and weaknesses?” encourages candidates to frame their responses according to what they think the interviewer wants to hear. This is not the best method.
Behavioral interview questions are designed so candidates describe things they actually did in a previous situation and the outcome of their actions. Ask questions like “Tell me about a project you helped initiate. What was your role? What were the results?” and ”Tell me about a time you made an unpopular decision. What were the reactions? How did you respond?”
4. Contact references.
References are a valuable tool for attaining a more complete impression of a candidate. References can verify information, provide feedback on the candidates’ past job performance and accomplishments, and give insight into whether they’ll fit with your company’s culture. They can also verify the accuracy of the examples given in responses to the behavioral questions posed during the interview. When considering a candidate, it’s also prudent to examine their resume to find colleagues who are in your business network and contact them as well.
5. Use the interview to describe the job position.
Interviews are opportunities for managers to give candidates a realistic impression of the job position and the company culture. Some managers are tempted to oversell the company in job interviews, which can ultimately lead to employee dissatisfaction in the long run. Answer questions thoughtfully and candidly and let your natural enthusiasm for the company show, and you’ll help the candidate make an informed decision.
6. Hire for attitude.
At least one study found that 89% of the time new hires failed, it was for attitudinal reasons, not lack of skill. Hire for characteristics that align with the company’s values as well as technical skills. Be proactive about recruiting people who will be good for your team. High performers are a good source of referrals.
7. Don’t take chances.
Sometimes employees can hire candidates with obvious deficiencies, in hopes they will change. There will always be some compromises made, but if a candidate has a track record of burning bridges, missing deadlines, or quitting multiple jobs within a few weeks – their past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior.
8.Silence Can Be Golden.
Try pausing and counting to 5 after an answer to a question you want to know more about. Let them fill in the silence and reveal more.
9. One more interview.
If you have doubts, conduct one more interview. A bad hire is too costly to the company to forgo the additional interview. And if you find you’re deciding between a pool of average candidates, continue the process until you find someone who fits.
10. Look on social media.
Is the candidate on social media such as Twitter or Facebook? What do they comment on? What do they do with their free time? Who are they are linked to on LinkedIn? Social media channels can give a good look into whether someone will fit your culture.
By taking the time to sufficiently prepare for an interview and asking the right questions, companies can improve their chances of hiring the candidate who is best for the job. If you need help developing an effective interview process which produces consistently great results, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.
by Mike Yoder | Business Resource, General, Hiring
I was recently asked to speak to a group of business owners about “World Class Job Descriptions.” Servant HR clients have a love-hate relationship with job descriptions – some love them, some hate them and some just view job descriptions as a necessary evil. While job descriptions are not mandatory for our clients, it is important to understand why job descriptions are necessary and the role they play in keeping you out of trouble.
1. Simplify recruiting communication
First, job descriptions are an easy way to explain job requirements to applicants. You want to attract and hire competent employees, and to do so, they must understand the key requirements of the job. A well written job description can make the recruitment process flow much more smoothly.
2. Clarify expectations with employees
Second, job descriptions are a great tool for communicating expectations to employees. The job description spells out what is expected of the employee and provides the direction to achieve successful job performance. You can utilize the job description when it comes time for performance reviews and/or determining compensation for a given position. You can also use them as road maps for career planning and training.
3. Ensure compliance with governmental regulations
Third, job descriptions are key to ensuring your legal compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). You may be faced with a situation in which an employee requests an accommodation in order to perform his or her job. Your job description is firm documentation of what constitutes the position and the requirements for it. This will be important in determining what are “essential functions” and potential reasonable accommodations. Your job descriptions also assist with FLSA compliance. By spelling out the FLSA status of a position (exempt v. non-exempt) you set the parameters for work hours, pay type and overtime.
4. Position to defent agains faulty unemployment claims
Finally, having job descriptions on file can be the difference between winning or losing (and paying!) unemployment claims. In today’s workplace, it is imperative to have written job descriptions for each position in your organization. In terms of unemployment claims, it is not uncommon to have an employer speak to the requirements of the job and then the employee claims they never knew of those requirements. The State Department of Workforce development tends to be ‘employee friendly’ and is less likely to deny benefits to someone who proves they were never given a job description. By creating them, you are giving yourself more leverage against faulty claims.
There are plenty of tools that help create the foundation of job descriptions without too much difficulty. It is a great starting point where an employer can then make them specific to their workplace and culture.
If you don’t have world class job descriptions or have concerns that yours won’t pass the test, we’d be happy to chat with you about your options.
by Mike Yoder | Business Resource, Business Strategy, Legal Compliance, Outsourcing
Business owners have to take risks to grow, but not all risks are worth the gamble. When it comes to outsourcing HR services, as with all business decisions, smart entrepreneurs and owners take calculated risks — not leaps of faith.
Risks worth considering
The kind of risk business owners like and should be willing to take should feel more like opportunities to gain than to fail. A cost-benefit analysis should be applied to any situation from which you could lose. For example, insurance is a hedge against risk. You make payments to your provider so that you reduce liability for things such as property damage. Other such risks worth considering include things including
- moving into a new market
- purchasing new software
- changing processes or systems
- increasing your marketing budget
Risks to avoid — always
On the other hands, some risks are fraught with danger, with no benefits available. Anything in your business related to taxes or your company’s general welfare isn’t worth the gamble. If you don’t have general liability insurance, for example, serious company-killer risks can emerge. Simple errors and omissions can put your company at considerable risk.
HR Risk Management
If you are considering outsourcing HR services, the big questions to ask yourself are:
- What are my responsibilities and risks as an employer?
- What are my risks and responsibilities if I outsource?
From a HR professional’s perspective, employers carry three major areas of risk.
1. IRS/TAX COMPLIANCE. When issues of compliance and withholding funds for tax purposes come into play, there is no benefit to being risky. The short-term effects of mishandling tax issues include penalties and additional taxes. This is also where audits with employee classification come into place. If you have misclassified someone as an employee or contractor, you can owe back wages, benefits and taxes, and may be required to pay interest and penalties.
WHEN YOU OUTSOURCE: A full-service PEO collects and passes on payroll taxes, workers’ compensation payments and other IRS-related items so the employer doesn’t assume all of the risk involved. While you can’t outsource every aspect of IRS liability because you still have some control over your workers and workplace, you are receiving consulting advice on statutes, which helps you make smart HR decisions.
2. EMPLOYMENT LAW. Federal, state and local employment laws can be a hairy, complicated combination of rules and requirements. Compliance issues cover employee handbooks, required signage in workplaces — workers’ compensation, employee rights, minimum wage amounts, etc. — and processes related to hiring, disciplining and firing employees. If you aren’t diligent, you can end up with fines, penalties, lawsuits related to wage/hour issues or discrimination, attorney’s fees, lost business and opportunities. These are company-killer issues you don’t want to risk.
WHEN YOU OUTSOURCE: When you outsource these kinds of legal compliance items, you are obtaining access to the knowledge and experience to reduce your risks of legal liability.
3. COMPANY CULTURE AND RETENTION. If you choose to cultivate and manage your company’s culture and manage employee retention on your own, you should expect to spend a lot of time and money to do it well. You want to train your team to be their best, and you want to keep them on the payroll. A lot of studies show that replacing an employee is often as expensive as a full-year’s salary of that employee. Between ending a relationship with one employee, and recruiting, training and getting up to speed a new employee, you are losing precious time and opportunities — plus the financial burden of that process.
There’s a real financial cost to creating the right place to have the right talent. An engaged employee is going to be a more valuable employee. In fact, a Gallup poll of more than 17 million employees showed that engaged employees are more profitable, productive, customer focused and safer. If you aren’t doing everything right when it comes to support your company culture and retention rate, you are definitely carrying serious risk.
WHEN YOU OUTSOURCE: A PEO is a full-service human resources service provider, which means it doesn’t stop at legal compliance and payroll issues. It provides consulting and direction to ensure your company’s goals are being supported by a strong culture, and engaged employees are keys to that overall picture. If you outsource the risk related to building and maintaining a valuable culture, you are putting those responsibilities in the hands of professionals who know that the occasional ice cream social isn’t going to prevent employees from finding other employers.
What are your responsibilities and risks as an employer? What are your risks and responsibilities if you outsource? If you would like to learn more about how a PEO can reduce your risk, please contact me, Mike Yoder, at 317-585-1688.
Lumatic via Compfight cc
by Mike Yoder | Business Resource, General
An interview and resume reveal only so much about a job applicant. Background checks often shed a clearer light on someone’s past. While there have been policies related to background checks, there has not been recent activity in the form of a federal guidance until last year.
In April 2012, the EEOC issued a new policy guidance essentially saying you cannot have a standalone policy stating you will never hire someone because they committed a particular offense without considering exceptions. If an employer were to say they would fire someone specifically because they were convicted of DUI, domestic violence or aggravated assault, for example, the fear is that there is some chance the decision would have a disparate impact on minorities.
There is a common way to deal with these guidelines. If someone is applying for work at your company, be sure the application includes a consumer authorization that says you can run a background check and ask if they have been convicted of any crime. It’s a simple “Yes” or “No” question. When you run the background check on that applicant, you will find out if they lied about having been convicted. If they lied, that is grounds for not hiring them.
If the potential employee indicated on their application that they were convicted of a crime, you must engage in an “interactive dialogue” With that potential employee prior to deciding whether to hire them. During this discussion, the HR services provider or employer talks to the applicant about what the background check divulged. You then have a conversation about the circumstances surrounding the crime committed.
A DUI is a common crime, often considered a crime of stupidity. Other common crimes are considered crimes of honesty. Those include things like petty theft, larceny, receiving stolen property or writing illegal checks. One important question to ask yourself in such a situation is whether you want the offender touching your money.
Two Areas to Consider During the Interactive Dialogue
During the interactive dialogue, the employer should consider the type of crime the person committed. Perhaps they did something dumb and are honest it. Do you hire them? Even in a crime of violence such as domestic violence, be sure to let the person tell their story before making a decision about their employment. The person could have been fighting back from an attack. Listen, and then decide.
You shouldn’t hire or fire an ex-offender just because they’re an ex-offender. First, consider when the crime was committed. For example, say in 1998 a job applicant got caught smoking marijuana. Listening to his story, you hear that he doesn’t drink or smoke now. He says it was a tough time in his life and then he found his faith. Listen and make decisions on a case-by-case basis.
Value of the New EEOC Guidelines
The new EOCC guidelines help set up a process for you to ensure that before you say “No” to a former offender who is qualified for a job, you step back and see if the situation runs too much risk for your company.
The EOCC guidelines have been out for over a year. There are certain industries such as childcare and long-term care, and employees such as those who work in collections on sensitive contracts, where certain felonies or misdemeanors could be serious red flags.
Ideally, the EEOC really should have solicited input from companies to see how this could impact them. I always think it’s important to engage with potential employees to ask questions to get to know the person and their story before you make the decision to terminate or hire. Ask them about previous jobs and what they do in their free time, for example.
At Servant HR, we are normally involved in the background check process. What we see most often with individuals with conviction histories is either people don’t admit they received a conviction or they admit a smaller crime but their background check divulges something much worse.
We generally are a fan of background checks because we believe you should know someone’s story. The cost is minimal, so for anyone with access to finances, you should absolutely run a background check. If someone is working with children or the elderly, run a background check.
You must have it in your employee handbook that you, as the employer, have a right to run a background check in order to run it on current employees. If someone’s criminal conviction runs a risk of jeopardizing the safety of your workplace, an interactive engagement is necessary and job termination might be necessary.
We can help you determine the best ways to handle background checks and other sensitive HR issues. Tell me about your HR challenge so we can get started.
![Health Care Reform and Small Business: Part 2 (Types of Plans)]()
by Jeff Leffew | Business Resource, Business Strategy, Employee Benefits
For small businesses with fewer than 50 employees, the biggest changes health care reform will bring about are related to the benefits landscape:
-
1. It will change how the rates of those plans will be determined. (Click here for Health Care Reform and Small Business: Part 1 (Rates), the first part of this discussion.)
-
2. It will change the types of plans employers will offer employees.
Types of Plans: Slim Pickings Ahead
I predict that the time is coming where brokers will start breaking the news to small groups that they have fewer choices in benefits plans. Health care reform is dictating to large groups how benefits plans have to function. In order to meet the definition of what a plan is, carriers are going to have to redesign their plans.
The carriers for a short time will continue to have a wide variety, although they eventually will narrow the choices to meet what is called a “qualified plan.” The government is telling us all what is appropriate, and this increased pressure on carriers will lead to limited choices for consumers. Robust plans will be available, but they will be cost prohibitive for most employers.
A fascinating thought leader in this area is Dr. Ben Carson. Carson is a pediatric neurosurgeon who was raised by a single mother in inner city Detroit and eventually carried out work on the first separation of conjoined twins. To summarize his big idea, he argues that if the government is going to mandate anything, carriers should be set up as nonprofit organizations. It is an interesting idea to consider. If insurance companies were set up as nonprofits, it would take out the natural battle between a government mandating a product and a business’s focus on making a profit.
What’s a Small Business to Do?
So given the current and impending medical insurance landscape, what can a small group employer do? For companies that are around that 50-employee mark, I would recommend that you think twice about getting bigger or expanding right now. Before you begin growing, be sure you count the costs. We haven’t had to consider these costs in the past, but this is part of our new reality under health care reform. If you need to hire and doing so is cost prohibitive considering the growing costs of health care, you may need to think about increasing the prices of your own services or products.
At the end of the day, you need to know what is in the bucket of money you have to give your staff (wages, taxes, benefits, etc.) and be sure that benefits are still valuable because you will have to evaluate what makes sense. I encourage you to look at your position in the marketplace and the skill set of your employees; see if a salary increase is a better choice in place of health insurance.
Fifty is the magic number when it comes to employee counts. But for small groups under that 50 mark, health care reform still has repercussions. Be ready to tackle those today.
What questions do you have about health care reform? Contact me to see how Servant HR can help.
![Health Care Reform and Small Business: Part 2 (Types of Plans)]()
by Jeff Leffew | Business Resource, Business Strategy, Employee Benefits
There has been some confusion regarding news that came out July 2 about the Obama administration’s decision to postpone implementation of his health care program’s employer mandate. This change only affects large group employers — not those with fewer than 50 full-time employees. Small group employers have other issues to consider.
For small groups, the biggest changes health care reform will bring about are related to the benefits landscape:
-
1. It will change how the rates of those plans will be determined.
-
2. It will change the types of plans employers will offer employees.
Rates: Let’s Do the Numbers
Small groups aren’t currently required to offer health care benefits to employees. If they do offer it, they are offering it at will. The common worry among employers and analysts is that health care plans will be very expensive in the future, and projections are showing that this is a legitimate concern. Even if an employer is offering health insurance benefits now, the price tag could be prohibitive in the future as plan prices increase across the board. The result could be that employees are forced to find coverage at the individual level in the exchange market.
Why are rates expected to go up? For one, health care reform requires carriers to determine rates by a community rating. A community rating system (opposed to a system based on risk) is currently being used in New York, Maine, Colorado and several other states. It’s not a foreign concept, but it is not at a national level — yet. In a community rating system, a person’s individual health history and occupation do not help determine their rate. Today, when someone is in a higher-risk industry such as construction or commercial fishing in Alaska, their occupational risk is used to figure their rate. Likewise, if someone works in a slow-moving office setting that’s considered a preferred industry, that person may be able to earn credits to get lower rates.
Under health care reform, that kind of risk isn’t weighed. Under health care reform, employers or insurance companies may no longer ask if you or anyone in your family has a history of cancer, heart disease or other health issue. This may seem good for the employee and bad for the employer, but it’s not so cut and dry. Think about your driving history. Insurance carriers regularly reward safe drivers with less expensive rates, credits and better coverage because they can make an educated guess regarding what their risk is if they insure that driver. If someone has had multiple traffic violations and accidents over the past couple of years, that information is also used to determine rates. If all of us drivers are lumped together as just “drivers” without the benefit of a little driving history, there is much less incentive for us to drive safely. Similarly, it could be argued that under the community rating system, there is less incentive for your employees to be healthy.
The community rating does consider gender, whether the person is a smoker and where they live. If you live here in Indiana, where we are known as one of the unhealthiest states in the country, even running the Indianapolis Mini-Marathon every year, abstaining from alcohol and eating right at every meal won’t help you when the community rating system goes into effect.
Consideration by insurance companies of individuals’ preexisting conditions is going away as well. This has been the case for children since 2012. Last year, virtually all carriers in the state of Indiana pulled out of writing policies solely for kids. The result is that affected parents can either pay for children’s expenses out of pocket or go through the state to get a medical coverage policy. Medical Mutual of Ohio just pulled out of Indiana completely — for children and adults. With one less carrier, we have fewer carriers competing for Hoosiers’ business.
Helping everyone get coverage despite their health history seems like a good idea, but eliminating the ability to ask about preexisting conditions has negative repercussions for business. For example, employers would want to be aware if an employee coming onto a new insurance policy has had three back surgeries, because chances are good that person will need another one.
The bottom line is that when the insurance carriers can’t predict the kind of risk they may be covering, they have to think worst case scenario. As a result, rates are poised to increase under health care reform.
Look for Part 2 (Types of Plans) on the Servant HR blog tomorrow, July 26.
