Hiring Great People in 2008

Historically, the two weekends after New Year's Day are the largest help wanted issues of any newspaper. With people looking for jobs, how do you stand out from the others in trying to hire the best people?

Most companies looking to hire wait until the new year begins. People currently working want to stay at their current jobs until the end of the year to earn bonuses and holiday pay, qualify for retirement plans and enjoy holiday parties with their co-workers. Conversely, hiring companies don't want to start people in December for the same financial reasons, and because current people are more interested in their holiday shopping than training a rookie. People make their New Year's resolution "to get a job they like".

How do you start your quest to hire great people?

If you are replacing a current person, terminate them. Nothing is more embarrassing than to have a current person come up to you and say, "I saw my job advertised in the paper---what's going on?" (I did learn this rule the hard way!) Sure, you and your team will have to work a touch differently, and more often then not, you'll find the person you are firing hurt the team efforts rather than helped...after all, that is why you are making the change.

The day after the termination, post the job description of the new person on your company bulletin board, asking your current employees for referrals. A current employee knows the ins and outs, the good and bad parts of the job, and if they are recommending their friend for the job, the friend will be fully briefed before your first interview. Most people take pride in their job and their workplace. They will only ask their friends that are good workers to join the team. Additionally, a new employee will be welcomed if a friend of a current employee.

Hiring through internal referral is, by far, the best way to hire working level people. (I guess by saying this, that senior management doesn't work--- but you know what I mean, don't you?)

Interview every referral you get. You don't have to hire someone from this pool, but I bet you'll get good talent here.

A question that comes up here is one of hiring family members. There are pros and cons, both with good points. At Floral Glass we went out of our way to hire family members. If a person is a great worker, the odds are his brother or sister has the same values. Current employees will not recommend their black-sheep cousins, as it does reflect on them. We had many families working with us. We had three brothers in one family, and they all rose to line supervisors positions. Work ethic instilled at a young age does carry through to glass companies.

Yes, we had an occasional problem, but less so than in our total workforce. There is no doubt that this helped us. You don't want to have two family members posting cash and doing collections, but other than that, go for it. Look at your employee manual; if it prohibits nepotism, revise it by saying, "We are glad to interview referred family members for employment at our company. Referred applicants will receive the same treatment as job applicants from other sources"

Help wanted ads are the next most common source of gaining new employees. Ads are placed in sections based on the type of job. If you are hiring an installer, don't place it in the medical help section. Confirm the section you want with the person taking the ad. If in a general section, it is most often alphabetized using the first letter of the headline. The headline is what gets your ad read. Don't use "hard worker wanted" or 'full-time job". Say something special to get attention. Use phrases like "Exciting glass industry" or "Energy savings glass installation". Help wanted advertising is just like every other type of advertising...you want someone to read and take action based on your ad. If the ad looks small and cheap, it gives that impression of your company. Now, don't take a half-page; do put your headline in a larger type and do put a thin box around your ad. The purpose is not to hire people with the ad; you do that in person. The ad should contain the basic job description, in seven-to-ten words, your location, a short list of your benefits, and the hours of work. THE PURPOSE OF A HELP WANTED AD IS TO GET PEOPLE TO CALL YOU OR STOP IN AT YOUR SHOP. This is what you want. Give the reader a reason to call you--invite them to call you to ask questions.

Never put wages in the ad. People who want more will never call. Your firm is more than wages---maybe you have great benefits---and the whole package makes you very competitive.

Somebody in the back row just said, "Hey, Bieber, now I gotta spend more time talking to people, interviewing and such...I don't have enough time!" Hiring good people is the most important job of a leader, bar none. Don't scrimp on time for this important task.

You don't like newspaper advertising? Next week I'll be with my in-laws and not able to post, but the following week we will talk about non-traditional ways to get job applicants. The week after that, we will discuss interviewing techniques that will help you hire the best candidates.

Safety--Round Three

My Son, Philip, who is a better writer and editor than I, tells me never carry a thought longer than three times. So this will be the third and final installment on Safety in the Glass Industry.

Safety in the glass industry (and most industries) is driven by four things:

1. A desire to keep people safe and in one piece
2. A need to reduce worker's comp costs
3. A need to keep people working and productive
4. A desire to avoid problems with governments (OSHA)

If you have a true desire to remain accident-free, read on. If you are willing to accept having some accidents, then stop reading and go to work because you are going to need every penny you can get your hands on to pay your comp bills and OSHA fines,

A while back I too believed that some accidents were unavoidable, and that a small accident was OK. As our worker's comp rate slowly climbed, as our workforce became less experienced, I learned that having a safe company was not a cost, but an investment that pays real dollars and goodwill back to leadership.

If you allow a 'simple cut' as OK, where do you draw the line. Three stitches? Five stitches? A tendon in the wrist? As you work towards a zero accident rate, the three just mentioned would end up as: Nothing, Nothing, and Three stitches. The cut tendon could be avoided or at least the damage reduced. How?????? By teaching proper practices, enforcing handling and shop rules, and by wearing the correct Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).

The biggest cause of glass accidents is handling glass too often. DUH! Of course. The less 'touches' you have, the less chance for an injury. Plan your travels during the day with the last stop on the inside of the rack, and the first stop towards the edge. You say, well the orders don't come that way...and I say, get the scheduler in your company involved so that they schedule jobs with large glass on trucks that don't have other stops, or later in the day on trucks with multiple stops. You see, it does takes everyone in a company to create a safe company. Wet glass is tougher to handle than dry glass, of course you know that. When your scheduler makes appointments for large glass, do they say that high winds or rain will cause a delay? Or is it up the the installer to make his stops, no matter what? Give the installer the authority to decide when it is not safe to carry certain glass. If you have a good team they will not abuse the privileges; your teams will grow because of your trust in them.

So 'work smart' will reduce accidents. I promise. In my observations, the next biggest cause of accidents was clutter around the shop or truck. If you are carrying a lite of glass and have to step over something, your balance changes and that can cause a slip. Always have clean walkways in your shop. Have clean racks so that glass doesn't break when sliding out. Have good lighting so that a small run can be seen before a lite is picked up. Which begs the rule that every lite is inspected before it is picked up. Good lighting doesn't work if people don't open their eyes!

Working smart involves wearing shoes that support and protect you. Glass shops should allow only leather work boots, at least ankle height, with metal toes and a metatarsal guard. What is a metatarsal guard? It is a piece of steel worn on top of the shoe, above the ankle. They sure are wimpy looking---until you realize that major league umpires wear them because they prevent injuries---and umpires are far from wimpy.

If you require work boots, (YOU SHOULD) you will be responsible to pay for them. Sears is about the best choice, along with local uniform or work supply outlets. There are expensive boots, and there are realistic boots. You should offer to pay up to a set amount, usually $50-70, and if the worker wants more expensive boots than that, let them pay the difference. What do you do if the worker left his boots at home...send him home to get them, on his time, not yours. He is late when he goes for them and comes back. Too bad. Nobody wakes up in the morning and forgets to put shoes on. If employees are responsible they wear boots, if they are lazy or trouble-making they will wear their sneakers. No boots, no work, no exceptions.

Arm guards are next...there are many types to wear. I recommend a short pair of wrist guards, from the base of the hand up about six inches and then a cut protecting sleeve from the shoulder down to a point where the wrist guard is covered. Cut wrists are an expensive, and unfortunately too common injury in our trade.

If you are a manufacturer, then leg guards, or chaps should be part of your PPE program. I've found very few installation companies that use or provide chaps. So, if you don't have chaps, insist on a heavy denim-type pant, not shorts!

Safety equipment is not going to be the most comfortable option for your staff. They will complain, they will try to get around the rules, just like the 3rd graders who pass notes, but this is for every one's good. Enforce the rules you create. Use one or two people from your shop floor to help pick out various safety equipment. Try different types for a week, and you'll find greater cooperation from the work force.

All of this helps point one and two. Point three calls for keeping people working. Let's now tell you Bieber's Brainstorm: 'ONLY THE GOOD EMPLOYEES HURT THEMSELVES. THE INJURIES ONLY HAPPEN DURING BUSY TIMES OF THE YEAR. INJURIES ONLY OCCUR WHEN OTHER KEY PEOPLE ARE ON VACATION. When an accident occurs, of course you loose a good worker, even if it is just for that day. You also have three people talking about it for a day. Accidents hurt productivity beyond the person that has the injury. My feelings are that for every day an employee is lost due to an accident, you loose an additional day of productivity because of having to refocus efforts of others.

Number four, which will bite you when you are not looking is OSHA. If you have a serious injury rate higher than other firms like yours, you can expect a visit from OSHA. I have been involved with a couple of OSHA visits, and I was so surprised how careful and friendly the inspectors were. Of course, we didn't argue with them, that may have helped. But they were not there to hurt us, but to find ways to prevent accidents. Their mantra, "zero accidents", is what they will talk with you about. If you have a process in your business that has the potential of an accident, and you don't have accident prevention in place, OSHA will tell you to stop doing that, now. The answer of: "It will cost money to build a guard", or "it will take longer to do something", will not fly. Trust me, the OSHA agents I met were unflappable in their goal of stopping accidents. They took no middle ground, no compromise. An OSHA visit, will, in the long run, make you a better company, but it will be expensive and time consuming. Avoid the visit by preventing accidents.

We could write three blogs on each of the points here, but you get the drift. Avoid accidents and you will be a better company. Still have questions? Catch me at paulbaseball@msn.com, anytime.

Oh Say Can You See

In the glass industry the most basic personal safety equipment are gloves and safety glasses. Yet, in a very casual and unscientific survey I saw many glaziers and fabricators not wearing safety glasses. I kept asking 'why not?', and the overwhelming answer was "I'm careful--nothing will happen to me". I called this the 'Superman' complex as it was mostly in younger workers who thought they were invincible.

Every person in a plant, a glass shop or on a job site should wear approved safety glasses. Approved glasses are polycarbonate or approved corrective lenses, usually chemically tempered glass. No excuses. No exemptions. If you walk into your shop for just a minute, put on safety glasses. If you take someone on a tour, give them safety glasses. It's OK to set up a small safety zone by your back door for deliveries, as long as there is no glass in this area.

Owners must wear the glasses. Even if running out for 10 seconds, wear the glasses. By setting the example it is easier to enforce this safety rule throughout your organization. If you wear prescription lenses, simple side shields are available. These slip on the sides of the ear pieces protecting you from bouncing fragments. Looking chic doesn't exclude safety glasses. There are many supply companies that sell safety glasses that you won't be embarrassed to wear. Sunglasses are not safety glasses--don't allow them unless they are certified for safety. For job sites or residential calls don't allow tinted or reflective glasses. Your customers want to see who they let into their house!

It is impossible to place a value on an accident that didn't happen, but in comp cases, loosing partial or full sight is a very expensive claim. A scar on a wrist is a small claim; any claim that involves the face is an expensive claim. But don't do this for the insurance...mandate safety glasses because a horrible injury is totally preventable by wearing glasses.

If someone doesn't wear glasses, safety glasses are an adjustment. When you start your program, give it a week or two for people to get used to them. Issue each person a pair of glasses, and keep spares for visitors by the door to your shop. Yes, you will get complaints on a hot day, and some joker will say he can't see as well, using glasses as an excuse for doing something wrong. Stand firm that glasses have to be worn.

Every glass fabricator has a favorite customer. At Floral Glass our favorite customer was a gentleman named Howie Norden, from Northport, NY. He was a customer for 40+ years. He was and still is the most honest man you'll meet. He always had a joke to tell, always had a smile on his face. One day his son, Howard Jr. came in with a tragic story. His Dad was throwing some glass into the dumpster and a fragment jumped out and went right into Howie's eye. It was a long surgery, and a long recovery. After the bandages came off, his vision was saved, but he didn't see as clearly as he had before the surgery. Howie had thrown glass into that dumpster for 40 years and never had an accident. He now wears safety glasses whenever he is near glass. It only takes one freak accident to have a devastating effect.

Simply put--avoid OSHA, avoid claims, avoid trouble--provide and make mandatory the wearing of safety glasses in every corner of your shop.

Wear Your Safety Belt!

A very dear friend of my brother-in-law had an horrendous auto accident Sunday bringing sadness to our Thanksgiving weekend. I have been planning to do some blogs on safety in glass shops and plants and this now is the time to start.

Always wear your seat belts in a moving vehicle. If you are a company owner, insist that all employees wear seat belts at all times. No exceptions. Teach your employees, and your family that seat belts save lives. Sure I have seen that rare newspaper story that talks about how someone was trapped by their seat belt, but I have seen many more about people whose lives were saved by a combination of airbags and seat belts. Forty nine out of fifty states require seat belts (or child seats with belts) for all people in a car. The reason--they work.


The one state out of fifty that doesn't require belts, you ask? Why it is right here in New Hampshire where the 'live free or die' movement says the state can't tell people what to do. We also don't require motorcyclists to wear helmets. There is no coincidence that New Hampshire is one of the largest states in medical transplants. The reason is, of course, cycle and car accidents with severe head trauma, leaving organs available for transplant.

Make this a bold type statement in your employee handbook. This is for the employee's safety; and for you, an employee who is less severely injured will have a lower claim, which has a lower impact on your worker's comp insurance.

It is your job to make sure every vehicle has working seat belts, and that you have told each employee the importance of this rule. After that, it is up to each person within the company. You should set the tone by always wearing yours.

If you have a forklift, make sure it has a seat belt, and that it is used. Besides being a easy target for an OSHA visit, it just makes good sense when the night shift has their forklift races.

So, if an employee pulls in to your shop and is not wearing his/her seat belt in a company vehicle...warn them, and educate them. Make this rule have teeth. The second offense is a suspension...the third should be a longer suspension, and the fourth becomes termination. No excuses allowed. Don't listen. This is a black and white situation.

This and That at Thanksgiving

Woke up this morning to a steady snow fall. About an inch of the white stuff on the ground in the front yard already and more on the way. The best part was opening the door for our cat, Whitely. She runs out under a protected entry and then like you see in the cartoons, she applies the brakes. She skidded into the snow and looked at me like what the heck is this. We adopted her this year as a young cat, and we are not sure how young, so this may be her first snow. She took a fearful step and then pulled her paw back, then another step, and suddenly she leaps out and rolls over. Oh, to be a kid again.

Does anyone really want to talk glass now? I had an interesting visit recently which would be right for a discussion on a short week. Moving to New Hampshire we needed new wills. We met with an attorney and everything is really simple--all to the kids--but wait, he said, what if you are involved in a tragic accident and the four of you are all killed. Do you want the state of New Hampshire to decide who gets your assets?

It was an interesting question and one which Elaine and I couldn't immediately answer. IF there are not provisions for what he called a "nuclear accident" then Elaine's Mother would receive half our assets, and a cousin of mine in California would receive the other half. The lawyer asked us to prepare a list of who would receive assets in this case...a school we had attended, our Temple, nieces on Elaine's side of the family?

It is an interesting exercise to go through as we were forced to specifically think about our lives, what impact they have had on society, and what impact we would leave by allocating sums of money to certain people and institutions.

Elaine and I have discussed this, and still do not have a final list. But, this has been a real eye-opener for me to create this list. I'm told that everyone with a will should have this list attached. Think about it this weekend when we are being thankful for what we have. Who do you want to say thank you to?

Improving Employee Reliability, Part Two

Last week we talked about financial incentives to improve employee reliability, specifically hitting them in the wallet. There are many other ways to improve this most-important of all employee characteristics. Let's look at a few.

Have an on-time lottery. Set a prize each week, if you are a 3 man shop, make it a $20 bill. If you are 30 man shop, a DVD player or a small TV, or a VISA gift card. Put all employee names in a hat. Pull one name and if that employee had perfect attendance for the week, not a minute late, he or she would win the prize.

If you pulled a name that was disqualified, no prize is won, and it carries over to next week. The disqualified name is not put back in the pot. It's fun and will work. Once a quarter have a super prize of all people with perfect attendance for the quarter.

Explain to each different work team or job crew how important each person's role is. Show how each team is slowed down, or even stopped if one person is late. Peer pressure is stronger than employer pressure in any job condition and will work if you have a team type environment.

This next one sounds corny, but it really is true. People react to accolades from peers and employers better than money. For each person who has perfect attendance for a quarter, give them a framed certificate they can hang in your shop. Give a better certificate for two consecutive quarters, and even better for a year. Make each certificate presentation a big deal in the company, and this will pay dividends. Remember back to first grade---you got a gold star if you had perfect attendance. It works just as well now as it did then!

Create an administrative attendance system that understands people do need time off on occasion. We used to call it paid personal days (PPD), and employees earned a certain amount each year. They could be used when sick, or to extend a vacation by a day, or to visit Grandma. As long as they were scheduled in advance, they didn't count against any attendance awards. The scheduling in advance is the key comment.

We even went as far as to allow conditional PPD's. A person requested to take off a day if it were a sunny day so they could play golf. If the weather was bad, they came in. We had our plans in place to cover the job if they did play golf: if the person came in we had them train in another department. A win all the way around.

Have a real bereavement policy covering parents, grandparents, spouse, children, brothers and sisters. Some companies include in-laws, some don't, its up to you. Whether it is one, two or three days is up to you. Make it a standing rule that the newspaper notice has to be turned in for every person. This way you are not discriminating by asking some people for proof and not others. If a person wants to take extra days for a bereavement, then use the PPD's as available. Don't count these against perfect attendance goals.

People often ask for other legitimate days off, not to count against goals, but you, as owner, have to draw the line somewhere. You do have a business to run. If someone wants to take a day off for xyz reason, they are going to take it by calling in sick that morning. If you pre-schedule it, at least you are keeping the firm running.

Another attendance problem is the lengthy lunch...when a person is due back at their work station at 1:00, and really get there at 1:10. If you have a lunch facility in your shop is it clean and fun to go into? If not, people will rush out to a fast-food shop and can be late. If you have 10 people, and one microwave, people will leave their posts early so their food can go in the microwave. Buying two more microwaves is a small investment.

Most businesses and shops have a lunch truck that visits. If your specified lunch period is 12:15 to 12:45, but the lunch truck gets there at 12:30, people won't go back to their work stations on time. Talk with the driver and see how you can alter the schedule, or maybe alter your lunch period.

Most companies pay on Friday, and most employees go to the bank to cash or deposit their checks. This is a classic cause of getting back to work late. A couple of solutions are: extend the lunch break on Friday by fifteen minutes and work the extra time at the end of the day. Direct deposit of checks will cure this. Many employees are afraid of direct deposit for a variety of reasons. Encourage all people to take direct deposit. In some states you cannot force people to enroll. Check with your banker.

Do you have enough parking? Does the second shift have to wait until the first shift leaves to open up a parking space. If an employee is in your parking lot, and you have not given them a space to park in, they will consider that as your problem, and expect to be paid. Silly? Of Course, but it happens.

If I say 'Cal Ripken' you would say the longest consecutive games of baseball ever played. Think of this as Cal's job. He went 15 years without missing a day of work. The country went wild of this. If you have people who have gone five years without missing a day...have a party in their honor on a Friday afternoon. If someone has achieved ten years...take the whole company out for dinner in honor of this great worker. People get motivated to achieve this same goal when they see recognition like this. Take an ad in your local paper showing a picture of your achiever. Maybe the business section of the paper will follow-up and do a story. Send a photo to trade magazines. Publicity about people achieving goals is great publicity.

We talked about penalizing people for missing time, with the hope that inflicting financial pain will solve the problem, and we've talked about positive reinforcement. Every company has to use a combination of the two to succeed. Good luck with crafting your plan.

Reliability is the Most Important Employee Habit

I was in a conversation with a business owner the other day, and he asked me what was my biggest employee headache, and how did I turn it around.

An easy answer---employee reliability---was number one. Simply defined as "Did the employee show up, ready for work, when she/he was supposed to?"

In my thirty years of leadership responsibility this is the one thing that got under my skin the most. If an employee can't do an assigned task, then it was my fault for not teaching well. If an employee was injured, it was my fault for not having the proper guards and protective equipment in place. If glass was delivered broken, it is my fault for not having the correct trucks or packing supplies available.

The only thing my employees ever had to do was show up on time, ready to work. Everything else can be taught.

This was my hot button. Come in late to work and you would not be on my good side. (Prejudices do come in to play here...A late night Mets game was a good excuse for being late!)

And this is definitely a case of do what I say, not what I do. I kept an abominable schedule, but we won't go into that here.

We allowed a five minute late period for punch-in. After that, the employee was tardy. Even if they worked the extra time at the end of the day, it didn't make up for the fact that a crew was one person short and had to scramble to get started. Three tardys earned an employee a written warning about the importance of being at work timely. Two written warnings earned a one day suspension with out pay or benefits. Three suspensions lost the person a good job.

As an employer you must set and monitor your standards. Having a mechanical or even a computerized time clock is absolutely mandatory. If you leave it to a sign in sheet, you will not get good results. A supervisor who doesn't want to seem like a hard case will adjust the time to keep from getting into an argument. And, it is a matter of whose watch is correct.

At work on time and READY TO WORK are two separate concepts. A worker who stumbles in at 7:00, but needs five minutes to put on their hard hat, safety glasses and steel-toed shoes, and is ready to work at 7:06 is late. Make sure you use this as a standard. There have been some recent Supreme Court decisions that say if an employee has to come to work early to be ready for a shift, they have to be paid for that time. So if you have a heavy dress code, consider this. But if a man has to punch in, walk to his locker to hang up his coat, put on safety glasses and he's ready to work, than a simple act like this does not qualify for the exclusion.

If an employee comes to work at 7:00, and needs a bathroom break at 7:15, you have a right to be upset. You should be. If an employee clocks in and then takes ten minutes to walk to their work station, be upset.

What can employers do? For a chronically late employee, buy them an alarm clock. They are three or four dollars for a little digital one. Wipe out the excuse. Explain that they are part of a team, and if the whole team is not efficient because of one member being late, it is a problem. Another tool to use is the pocketbook. Allow every employee to make up one or two lates per year, by working past the normal ending time. After that, they should be docked for a quarter hour, or whatever your timekeeping standard is.

People will react better when the penalty is real.

We had a program, that with the blessing of our union, helped us. One year we were due to give a fifty cent raise. Instead of giving the raise in the hourly rate, we created an attendance bonus system. Each employee was given a sixty cent per hour bonus, if they worked 40 hours per week. So, a man who didn't miss any time was paid an extra $24.00 per week. The employee who was late once, earned their regular wages, but lost out on the $24. This really helped with the chronic come-in-lates or leaves-early crowd. If an employee had pre-scheduled a late, then we were OK with it, for we could move people around the day before and not leave a crew short one man. This seems so simple, come to work every day, on time, and earn a bonus. Come in late, and loose big time. There were a few people who didn't earn their bonus. People realized the old excuses didn't apply and their paycheck now ruled all.

It used to be, on a snowy day, we would hear, "you know what the roads are like, so some people would be late. Under our bonus program, even with the weather excuse, people were not paid the bonus. Amazingly, people woke up earlier, and left their homes earlier to get to work on time.

People used to make doctors appointments at any time, and would just leave work early. Now, one early leave cost $24. It worked. We didn't do it not to pay our workers...we kept track...we paid out just as much as before, but with greater efficiency among our workers. This was a win-win for all of us.

As a follow-up, it worked for six years. There was a little bit of extra bookkeeping along with this, and some exceptions were made, but it was a great success. When our firm was purchased by Oldcastle Glass, they discontinued this policy as it didn't fit with their corporate plans.

I don't know if there has been any backsliding, but I doubt it.

Next week we'll talk more about what you can do to encourage reliability of your employees, so you can be reliable to your customers.