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Who's in Charge of Your Reputation?
by Darin Drabing, senior vice president, operations, for Forest Lawn Memorial Parks and Mortuaries in Southern California, www.forestlawn.com, where he oversees more than 500 employees.
Tools to Help You
Job application form. Is yours current? Have you looked at it critically and asked, "Does it ask the questions that I'm looking for answers to?" Do you ask your potential future employees if they have computer skills, or language skills?
A questionnaire. We started this years ago in our organization, and it's been very valuable for us. In addition to an application, think about designing a questionnaire—completely free, by the way, takes one white piece of paper and a couple of interesting questions.
One we use says something like, "Why did you choose to work in this industry?" We leave a nice area of white paper for them to fill in the answer. It tells us a lot of things. We can see if they can write, if they can put a sentence together; sometimes you don't get that from an application. We check the grammar and see if they have an original thought in their head.
Last week, I was looking over an application that looked great. This individual had a bachelor's degree, majored in English. The answer to one of the questions on the questionnaire, which was, mind you, a fairly broad question that could have evoked maybe a paragraph, was, "I read about it in the newspaper." That would have been fine, I guess, except she spelled "read" as "red." This was an English major! So the questionnaire saved everyone a lot of time.
Review process. Who in your organization is actually looking at the applications? Does it just get one shot or do other people get a chance to look at that application for other positions? Do you keep it?
Self-elimination. This is one of my favorites. Do you provide future applicants an opportunity to know about your business so they can choose not to work for you? We hand them a small booklet that has photographs of our employees doing various tasks. We include job descriptions so they'll know what "a day in the life" is going to be like.
We also include things like our ethics policy, what we will and will not accept. We talk about the dress code, saying, "Listen, you're not going to have piercings through your nose. You're not going to have tattoos running up the back of your neck. You're going to have to have your hair cut and you're going to dress conservatively." Some people might not choose to work in an organization like that, but they might not know that's one of your expectations.
We also let them know there's going to be weekend work; maybe they'll be on call; they're going to work holidays. Maybe their daily work is going to be quite emotional. Is this where they want to work?
Think about what you can tell people about what you're looking for, and save everyone some time.
Drug testing. You know what it costs? About $50. It's $50 well spent, and you don't have to test people until you're ready to hire them. Don't you want a drug-free work environment? Let potential employees know that you're doing it, because that's part of the self-elimination.
Background check. If you take nothing else from what I'm saying, take the fact that this is the most valuable thing you can do in the application and review process. There are all kinds of background checks. You can check their references, but that's not what I'm talking about.
There are Internet sites that will do a quick check, give you a response back pretty quickly, sometimes in a couple hours, sometimes 24 hours. That's really a minimum level. You can go up a level, checking driver and credit records. Is that important to you? Well, if they're handling cash, maybe it is. The third level is a complete background check, which costs somewhere around $150, but is so crucial to finding the right people.
Let me give an example of some candidates we screened out from real background checks. Armed robbery, sexual assault, battery, prostitution, multiple DUIs, fraud. One guy was a horse thief. We were ready to hire these people—they looked good, they spoke well, they had all the right attributes—minus a rap sheet.
The interview. Who interviews in your organization? What training has that person had in the interview process? I've sure you've talked about the questions they can't ask, questions that will get you in trouble: Are you married, how many kids do you have, that stuff. That's not what I'm talking about.
Has the interviewer been trained in the questions to ask to get the kind of responses you're looking for? Interviewing is a skill, and it's not done very well sometimes.
Is the person who's interviewing looking for the same thing you are? Have you talked about it? Have you talked about the essence of the employee who is going to be a right fit for your organization? What's the format? Does one person interview? Do you have a succession of interviews? Do you ever do panel interviews where several people ask questions of the interviewee? That's horrible for the interviewee; it's great for the organization.
Ask yourself this: Is interviewing a priority in your organization? Do you give it enough time, analyze applications and prepare questions, then review the results and talk about it? Or is it kind of an inconvenience, something you try to squeeze into your calendar?
1. Have a Hiring Plan
Where do you find employees who will enhance your company's reputation?
3. The First Day on the Job
Are you making a good impression on your new employees?
4. Do Personnel Issues Make You Sick?
Stop spending so much time with "viruses" and start investing in your good employees.
5. Evaluating & Motivating Employees
Find out who can do it, who "gets it," and how to get the best out of the people who "get it" and can do it.
Darin Drabing can be reached at ddrabing@forestlawn.com; (323) 340-4701.
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Copyright ICFA 2002
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