McConnell HR Consulting New York

Mis­take #2: No Job Descriptions

We once heard a com­pany CEO, in a busi­ness where there were no job descrip­tions, glibly state that ‘if my staff don’t know what their job is, they have a prob­lem’.  Our (tact­fully unstated) response was “No, if your employ­ees don’t know what they are sup­posed to be doing, YOU have a prob­lem”.  This is not bureau­cracy, this is good business.

Job Descrip­tions are the bedrock of any HR pro­gram.  They spell out how the busi­ness and pro­grams of the orga­ni­za­tion will be accom­plished.  They are invalu­able tools in recruit­ing (job ads), new employee ori­en­ta­tion, train­ing, com­pen­sa­tion and per­for­mance management.

Our advice: Write them.  They don’t have to be long.  Spell out the job title, report­ing rela­tion­ship, sum­mary overview of the role, a list of tasks and respon­si­bil­i­ties, and the required skills and qualifications.

Mis­take #3: Hir­ing the Wrong People

An old adage has it that manager’s make up their mind about a can­di­date within the first 30 sec­onds of the inter­view.  This may have some truth to it, but ‘hir­ing by feel” is plain wrong.   Sub­jec­tive impres­sions do not work.  Many man­agers ‘wing it’, sans a plan or any train­ing.  The major­ity of hir­ing man­agers we talk to in well known orga­ni­za­tions (with HR depart­ments) have never had a brief­ing on Human Rights and Interviewing.

Our advice:  Know the job you are hir­ing for.  Know the organization’s require­ments.  Cre­ate an Employee Refer­ral Pro­gram.  Hire for atti­tude, not just apti­tude.  Learn behav­ioural inter­view­ing tech­niques.  Know your human rights oblig­a­tions.  Use semi-structured inter­view­ing guides.  Be hon­est about the work envi­ron­ment and expec­ta­tions.  Involve oth­ers in the process.  Con­duct effec­tive ref­er­ence checks.  Watch out for infat­u­a­tion.  Don’t hire out of lazi­ness or desperation.

Mis­take #4: Not Get­ting Rid of the Wrong People

Man­agers hate to fire peo­ple.  They debate, pon­der, worry, pro­cras­ti­nate and ago­nize over it.  Their angst is pal­pa­ble. They hire con­sul­tants to tell them what to do – and then ignore the obvi­ous advice. They put up with extra­or­di­nar­ily poor per­for­mance because (as I was once told), they don’t have the ‘chutz­pah’ to make the required decision.

The rest of the orga­ni­za­tion watches in bewil­der­ment as the poor per­former drags every­one else down, wait­ing for man­age­ment to ‘do some­thing’. The most relieved per­son in the world is a man­ager the day after they’ve fired some­one.  The weight is off their shoulders.

Our advice: Flag poor per­for­mance early on.  Advise the employee what they are doing wrong, and how to cor­rect it. Pro­vide sup­port and train­ing.  Fol­low up. Doc­u­ment it. Advise the employee of the con­se­quences if the behav­ior con­tin­ues.   Intro­duce pro­gres­sive dis­ci­pline.  Get some advice. Obtain input and guid­ance from oth­ers.  If the prob­lem per­sists, make the deci­sion.  Design an appro­pri­ate ter­mi­na­tion pack­age and exit the employee.