a Practical Guide to HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

iUniverse, Inc.

Chapter One

I was enjoying a perfectly lovely Monday morning when I received a phone call from a customer who was having a very bad day. One of his employees was going on a hunger strike over the way the organization treated its African American clients and did not intend to eat again until they were treated better. I'll admit, my initial thought was, Wait a month or so, and the problem will go away. This employee's complaint was without merit — my customer greatly respects everyone regardless of race, gender, national origin, etc. I'll go into it in more detail about this story in Chapter 6, but for now let's just say it cost a whole lot of money and time and confirmed once again in my mind the importance of making the right hire.

Most of us who have experience with hiring people understand that there is more to finding the right person than placing a newspaper ad (well, Internet these days), conducting an interview, making an offer, and hoping for the best. To hire successfully, you need to follow a process like this one:

1. Decide what skills the employee will need to be successful.

2. Write those skills down so you can refer to them later.

3. Recruit for the position in places where the right people hang out.

4. Test and/or interview candidates for the skills you need.

5. Make them an offer they can't refuse.

Let's look at these individually.

Decide What Skills the Employee Will Need to Be Successful

The technical name for this process is "job analysis." I have been amazed over the years by the number of leaders who have come to me and instructed me to find the "perfect" person with no idea what the perfect person looks like. So what do you need to know? Check out the following information form.

While this amount of information may look a little daunting, when finished, you have the information you need for the next step.

Write Those Skills Down So You Can Refer to Them Later

Again, as with most things, this has a technical name: "position profile." When finished, this will serve as a document you can use to recruit — or, if you prefer, turn over to someone else to recruit for you. Here is an example of a Position Profile for a senior administrative assistant.

POSITION PROFILE

Position Title:

Senior Administrative Assistant

Reports to:

Chief Executive Officer/President

Basic Function:

Provides administrative support to the CEO/president, including telephone support, scheduling, and communication with other departments, divisions, and companies; travel arrangements; and presentation preparation. The senior administrative assistant will also support the Real Estate, Finance and Energy divisions.

Compensation:

Target salary of $45,000 + potential bonus to be determined.

Education and Experience:

Two years of college or equivalent, with a minimum of five years of experience supporting senior leadership. Excellent English, grammar, and oral/written communication skills are a must. Excellent PC skills are also required. Must be able to work in a hectic environment with constant priority changes and adjust to various personality types.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Ensures that all work is completed effectively; monitors the progress of work against schedules and budgets; maintains high performance standard; works effectively by using a highly collaborative style.

• Meets customer needs by developing and maintaining effective relationships with both internal and external customers and by promoting a customer-service orientation within the organization.

• Fosters relationships and a positive climate to build effective teams that are committed to organizational goals and initiatives; demonstrates flexibility in approach; is a team player.

• Creates an atmosphere in which timely information flows smoothly both upward and downward through the organization; possesses exceptional communication skills.

• Supports, manages, and initiates change within the organization, taking steps to remove barriers or to accelerate the pace.

• Actively pursues learning and self-development to enhance personal, professional, and business growth; shares learning experiences.

• Coordinates travel for the department; maintains appropriate records.

• Purchases and maintains office materials within agreed limits.

• Sorts and routes incoming and outgoing departmental mail.

• Answers telephone and gives information to callers or routes call to appropriate person; places outgoing calls, such as conference calls, if requested.

• Greets visitors, ascertains nature of business, and conducts visitors to the appropriate person.

• Reviews and gains proper approval for expense reports before going to Accounting.

• Issues check requests for department invoices (conference calls, rental cars, hotels, tradeshows, etc.).

• Schedules conference calls.

Recruit for the Position in Places Where the Right People Hang Out

I have always believed that hiring people is both an art and a science. Recruiting, however, is pure art. Many people immediately place an ad on Monster, Craigslist, or a host of other Internet job boards, and then sit back and hope for the best. Unfortunately, job boards only account for about 40 percent of all positions hired. What is the number-one source? Referrals and networking! (Source: http://jobsearch.about.com/cs/networking/a/networking. htm.)

Now, I am not suggesting you ignore such sites as:

• Linked In

• YAHOO! Hot Jobs

• JobCentral.com

• College Recruiter

• CareerBuilder.com

• Monster.com

• JobFox.com

• Indeed.com

• Simplyhired.com

• Jobing.com

• Net-Temps.com

Rather, I am suggesting that you need to pull out your Rolodex ... oops, sorry, I dated myself, your Outlook contacts and start contacting people you know. For example, for the Position Profile above, I might call other CEOs, executives, and business associates, and let my Facebook and LinkedIn friends know what I'm looking for in a new hire. Keep at it, and I think you will be surprised by the results.

There are a number of other resources that can also be used to locate the right person. These include:

• Recruiters

• Temporary agencies

• Professional trade associations

• High schools, junior colleges, trade techs, and universities

• Job fairs

• Open houses

• Employee referrals

• Newspaper ads

• Government resources

• Internet database searches

Each of these sources has specific advantages and disadvantages.

Test and Interview Candidates for the Skills You Need

Once your recruiting efforts have paid off, it is time to find out if this candidate is really "the one." There are a number of ways of doing this, including paper and pencil tests, psychological profiling, and a host of skill evaluations. While many of these are excellent tools I would caution you that the federal government developed rules in the late 1970s making these kinds of tests subject to validation requirements. A discussion of validation is beyond the scope of this book so if you are interested check out the...