12/05/2019
Putting Vision into Your Hiring Process
By Neal Hannon, Senior Consultant
Hannon Consulting Group
How do you get your employees to work every day with a passion for your business? Do you find that there are ebbs and flows to the performance of your team in the field? It may seem like all owners do is focus on getting the people to just do their job and yet there are still times when nothing seems to go right.
Although most crew members have an inner desire to do the right thing, some do not. Constant reminders help but at some point, companies need to admit that they hired the wrong person. As costly as turnover is, holding on to a person who hasn’t bought into the vision of the company costs you more. The real question is how do you find the right people to begin with?
The Holy Grail
Words are cheap, actions are priceless. Most small service companies will say that they are all about delivering high quality, on-time service. Slogans may be written on company literature and even on work vans but if the workers themselves do not deliver; the slogans are just empty words.
Is your company’s vision to be the highest quality painting company in the metro region? Easy to put slogans on t-shirts and vans. Easier still to post to Facebook. What’s hard is to get each and every employee to create quality work that customers recognize day in and day out.
But the challenge doesn’t stop there. Companies need to collect feedback from customers that is unquestionable evidence of the quality of your work. Social media posting verifying how pleased your customers are in their own words is the holy grail of marketing in 2020.
Hiring Smarter
Tired of the same old Craig’s List applicant looking like a decent warm body on day one who peaks out right after his second paycheck? Applicants can talk a good game in interviews but the rubber meets the road within the first 30 days. How do companies avoid the revolving door? If you want to hire better people, expect more from your applicants. How do you start the process? It starts with what you say in your employment advertisements.
Ask for what you want. Ask for people who are used to showing up for work on time, have a strong work ethic, and can name a time when they went out of their way to achieve a goal or to meet a deadline. We are not seeking time clock watchers who pull out early and often. We are talking about building your team with players who enjoy the work and savor the accomplishment when a job is completed on time and the customer is happy.
Dual Interview Technique
How many times have you left an interview thinking it went well only to find out later on that you hired the wrong person? Mistakes in the interview can be avoided if you use at least two people to “tag-team”. Often times a manager listens and hears differently than a front-line supervisor. The B.S. detector oftentimes is silent for one interviewer but is setting off alarms for interviewer number two.
Interviews should be conducted in a way that yields consistent results. Once you discover a set of questions that brings out the core of the person, use them again and again if you want similar results. One of my favorite interview questions is to have the interviewee describe a difficult challenge they have faced recently and tell me a story of how the issue was resolved. We are looking for individuals who can think and act logically with the best interests of the company and the customer in mind. Any deviation from that path in problem-solving methodology is a red flag.
The next important step in the process is to clearly articulate both the company vision and the initial rules that are in place day one to support the vision. If you want people who can meet deadlines with high-quality results the first thing you need to have is people who show up on time. The second thing you need is people who follow directions as written on the work order. Paint, colors, how to prep, how many coats of paint should all be followed to the letter. Applicants who miss details on the application have a high probability of failing to follow detailed instructions.
Keeping customers happy starts with clean workers and a clean workplace. Rules that support this value need to be in place and enforced from day one.
Onboard Mates!
The new employee, fresh from the interview process, needs special care for the first month. Day one should include a refresher of the company vision followed by what specific things the employee needs to do to successfully to complete the first thirty days. For new crew members, the number one rule is to show up for work on time. They are reminded of how important it is for the team to begin work at the start of the shift. This keeps projects on schedule. They should also be told how important informing crew leaders the minute they know they will not be on time. Schedules need to be adjusted and customers informed if the work we are counting on from them is not completed. Both of the above activities support the vision of making the project run smoothly from the customer's viewpoint.
Other rules that support the vision could be to follow work orders exactly and to do what your crew leaders tell you to do. Any questions should be directed to experienced hands that know your methods and procedures. Too often, new workers don’t either take the time to ask or make wrong assumptions on simple things that will lead to performing less than quality work.
Big Wheel Must Keep on Turning
Actually, performance at a high level of customer service by every member of the team starts with the owner. If the owner is not saying and doing everything in his/her power to make the slogans printed on the vans and shirts become reality, not much will happen in the field. Going out to the job site and praising workers who are clean and following procedure will go much farther than barking signals to field supervision when they show up for meetings at the office. Vision needs to be talked up daily. Those following the vision should be rewarded, those that are not following the vision should bee corrected or let go.
Why vision is so important
The transformation of the hiring process starts with a simple vision. Let’s look at an example to illustrate the point:
Have you ever walked into an unlighted room before? If you weren’t sure where the obstacles are do you walk cautiously? What if someone gave you a quick picture of how the room was laid out and pointed out the potential dangers ahead of time. Could you then walk into that dark room with more confidence? Vision works in the same way. If a solid vision is spoken to your workers it should guide their steps when they proceed in areas where they have never gone before. The vision can also create a clear path for repeatable actions that please the customer and add value to the company.
How do you communicate vision? Vision is communicated each and every day by pointing to things done right by your crews. When a customer sends you a review that speaks in glowing terms of how clean and respectful the team was while in their home, this can become a rewarding moment that will ensure future repeat performances. Vision opens the eyes of the crew to behavior that is pleasing to the customer. It also creates a path to take when doubt or uncertainty is present.
People are fundamentally wired to please. They want the approval of their actions. They want to achieve high levels of performance and will ultimately succeed if you give them proper direction.
A common thought among businesses is that they should hire people with little or no experience and train them to do the right thing. After all, these people haven’t yet picked up bad habits and can be taught the right way. This idea in practice is only half true. If the raw material you are working with is already hamburger and you are attempting to turn them into steak, you are going to be sorely disappointed. Good people with a good work ethic can be turned into carriers of the company vision leading fellow workers to achieve great things. People who lack strong a work ethic can be like a ship’s anchor that never gets off the river bottom.
Let’s take for example a small manufacturing company that makes a precision product. Buyers become life-long customers if they receive high-quality products delivered on time. If the value they receive from the product exceeds the price they pay they will return time and time again. This scenario creates a simple vision for the manufacturing company: Deliver high-quality products on time.
Every time the team performs well, they need to be told so. This is true even if the team is making 100% of their commitments. If any thought is present that the boss doesn’t really care if we make a schedule or not, the team will soon miss a deadline.
Quality is measured by adherence to processes and procedures. Time tested methods employed each and every time should give high-quality results. If they do not, something is amiss. The investigation into the product failure should take into account the materials, the methods and the workmanship used to create the product. Corrective actions should result in quality output once again.
Most businesses experience times when the quality is not up to specifications or the schedule falls behind. What is going on? Delivering on promises comprises of two major components. First, operations must be documented and followed precisely by properly trained and motivated employees. Second, imperfections in materials need to be discovered and removed from the process. Success can be measured by the combination of motivated employees following time-tested procedures with achieving on-time shipments.
What You Can Discover in 30 Days
Within the first 30 days, a new employee will have had multiple opportunities to show up for work on time, to work under different working conditions and to show some aptitude towards the work performed. Most new employees can put up a good act for the first couple of weeks, but will quickly revert to their true nature after four weeks. The track record they generate on their timecards will tell you if your first rule, show up on time and work a full shift, is happening or not.
The review process for the first thirty days should be a simple report card from each and every crew leader they have worked under answering simple questions such as:
• Attitude towards work (Scale 1-5 with 5 being the best)
• Show up on time
• Clean work area
• Clean appearance
• Follows Crew leader instructions
• Skill level
• Teamwork (are they willing to pitch in to help get the job done?)
Additional open-ended questions could include whether the crew leader would request this worker as a member of a future crew. Specific skills needed to advance this worker to the next level should also be identified so a training plan can be put into place.
Conclusion
Vision is an important element of a successful company. Understanding vision keeps a business moving forward especially when employees begin to take ownership of day to day decisions that support the company’s ability to move forward. Getting workers to internalize vision starts with the hiring process and needs to be re-enforced each and every day.
If your company needs help in formulating a vision that is actionable, call the Hannon Consulting Group. We can help you develop the vision and then put it into action. Call Neal Hannon at 660-888-8526 today!
