With many people scared for their lives in the current work environment, it is a perfect time to go over a few aspects of training new employees. I have noticed an uptick in job openings so low wage jobs which involve dealing with the public and somebody is going to have to train these people to do their job. That might even be you!
The most important aspect of hiring an employee to be able to do the job is to pick a proper candidate who is able to do the job effectively and with success. It sounds simple right? But it isn’t it. Generally a large portion of the public is unemployable, and they drift from one job to another wasting everybody’s time and money. I think we all have a brother in law, cousin or friend who just can’t get it together. You do not want to hire somebody like this.
The first step is to verify the candidate even thinks they can do the job. In the creation of the job ad you need to be honest with what you want and what the business needs. You might as well start high and get talked down, then start low and end up with substandard. You should describe your requirements in detail, and not just the official ones like a degree or past experience. If you want somebody who is good with the public, you should state that you want that.
If you are legally allowed to request certain things in the area you live, such as no criminal record for working at a daycare, you should require that. Although usually just saying they will have a background check is good enough to let people know what you are up to.
Once the people reply, I would recommend excluding any people who do not follow your application suggestions, if you say no phone calls please, and they call. Take that as a hint that they are not very good at following the rules.
After you set up several interviews, perhaps digital ones so you are not infected by Covid 19 and killed since our government officials bunged managing the virus. You reach the interview part of finding a good employee. You should have at least a basic interview for all potential employees, even if only one person applied for your terrible job.
During the interview, you should write the questions you ask beforehand. I discuss what somebody should ask in my book “Why do your employees hate you.” but generally it is good to ask questions about what kind of person they are, how they will be able to do the job, if they are reliable and will show up for work, problems or situations they dealt with at work in the past. Things of that nature. Don’t break laws and ask anything illegal ok? You get in trouble for that.
You should write down a quick summary of the responses to your questions for the future.
You should let them know when you are going to come to a decision and tell them a bit about the company, and what the job would involve. If they make any objections about what the job is, or hours or things like that I recommend not hiring them. If they can’t even lie to your face at the start of the job its going to be a hard battle to get them to do actual work.
After the interview, I recommend writing down a few notes about the potential employer. Were they friendly? Did they seem knowledgeable? Did they seem like a troubled and difficult soul? You might forget the “Vibe” of the person later, so you should write it down.
Once you are done with all the interviews, you should take a moment to yourself, close your office door and look over your notes, and the responses to your questions and evaluate the different candidates.
Pick out one you like, and give them a call. Offer to bring them in for a test day, or a short probationary period, if they do well, hire them and begin the training. If they are not a good fit, do not hire them and let them go free back into the world.
In the next section I will discuss how to actually begin training the employee. So they don’t end up hating you, stabbing you in the back and destroying your business.