Tag Archives: Character

Hiring Focused on Character

Discrimination, Hiring,

I often hear the general perception by business owners and managers that employees under the age of 30 have a lousy work ethic or other character deficiencies. They complain about entry-level employees who aren’t interested in paying their dues and are convinced they are entitled to move into the corner office on the day they are hired. I also hear about inappropriate dress, lack of loyalty and attendance woes among young people. But I know many “kids” under 30 (my 26-year-old son among them) who are incredibly motivated, hard-working, smart and willing to pay their dues.

Throughout my 32 years of practicing employment law full-time, I’ve also heard lots of similar stereotypical complaints about women in the workplace (“they can’t get along with other women—it’s always a cat fight” or “they just quit when they have children”). And sometimes, I have unfortunately been privy to pure misogyny, racism, ageism, and other bigotry when discussing problem employees.

I have a radical observation from more than 30 years of practicing employment law: Character is not generational, racial or gender-specific. I’ve worked with some terrific young employees and some terrible older ones, some unbelievably hard-working women and some slacker men, some brilliant minorities and some completely ignorant WASPs. The real debate is not about an employee’s age, race, gender or any other data point over which the employee has no control, but the employee’s individual character. So I encourage employers to focus on character more and stereotypes less (actually, not at all).

As an employer, I know you want to fill any open position with an employee who will exhibit responsibility, honesty, loyalty, enthusiasm, flexibility, initiative, dependability, civility, judgment and a distinct sense of right and wrong, regardless of their gender, ethnicity, age, or other protected characteristic.

You won’t find nearly as many business books that focus on character instead of generational conflict or the “downfalls” of diversity. The subject of character often sounds old-fashioned and faintly religious.

But all of us have reluctantly dealt with people with poorly-developed values: gossips, drama queens, whiners, liars, cheats, etc. There is no reason to have those kinds of people working for you and it is not illegal to refuse to hire them. But you have to be able to spot poor character in your hiring process to avoid bringing this poison into your workplace.

To hire better employees, first identify the character traits that are most important to you. Think back about what really disappointed or angered you about the personalities of unsuccessful employees in the past. Were they always tardy? Then dependability is very important to you. Did they steal company time by shopping on the internet on the company computer for hours a day? Then honesty and productivity are probably high on your list. Did your former employee pot-stir, pitting employees against one another? Then you are looking for someone who treats everyone with respect and doesn’t enjoy gossip.

Design an employment process that doesn’t just focus on job skills, but also zeroes in on the character traits that matter most to you. Ask open-ended questions about values in the interview, but don’t rely solely on your ability to judge character. No hour-long interview is going to tell you everything about an applicant’s character.

But you can find out some aspects of an applicant’s character if you ask about:

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My Christmas Wishes for Employers

Attendence, Benefits, Drug Testing, Ethics, Forms and Policies, Personnel Policies, , , , , ,

It is that time of year when we are singing, “We wish you a Merry Christmas”. As an employment lawyer with 30 years of experience, I have some idea of what you as a business owner or manager are wishing this Christmas.

I know you work hard as a supervisor. Managing people every day isn’t an easy job, particularly if your employees do not have a willing attitude to try to be a good employee.

I hear from employers every day about the frustrations that you face as an employer. The average person who supervises employees spends at least 20% of her time just dealing with employee mistakes, complaints, emotions, negligence, etc., on top of trying to do all of her regular work.

So, for this Christmas, I have made a list of what I wish for you as a supervisor in terms of employees.

  • Employees who realize that the purpose of a business is to make a profit, and that requires that the employee actually be present to perform the work assigned. I recently had a matter involving an employee who was tardy repeatedly for things like a flat tire, a loose dog and “I forgot to set my alarm”, so that client meetings had to be cancelled and business was lost. I wish for you as a supervisor the employment of people who realize that these little issues chip away at a business’s profitability. Even a small company should provide a generous amount of vacation time, sick leave and holiday pay. But once an employee has used up his allotted paid time off, he needs to think seriously about getting back to work and being productive for you or the business may not be there to provide his paid vacation the next year.
  • Employees who can be trusted with the success of your business, as well as the company’s time, money, and equipment. Every year I see a number of business owners in the Panhandle lose significant amounts of money to employee embezzlement, lose equipment to employee negligence and lose profitability to employee laziness. Granted, the employer needs to have reasonable checks and balances in place to try to prevent these losses. But wouldn’t it be nice if all of your employees were the kind of people who had enough integrity to forego theft, enough caution to treat your property as theirs, and enough loyalty to go above and beyond the bare minimum effort.
  • Sober employees. Most business now drug-test when an employee is hired. This has resulted in a drop nationwide in pre-hire positive drug tests. But I still see injuries and damage done by substance-abusing employees after they have worked for the business for a while. My wish is that you don’t have to deal with those issues. You can help make my wish come true by actually requiring the occasional random drug and alcohol testing in your workplace, as well as testing immediately after any personal injury or property damage occurs at work that might have been caused by an impaired employee.
  • Employees who exercise verbal discretion. Employees who gossip, spread rumors, complain, speculate and backstab in an effort to make themselves look better simply don’t realize that respect is given to those who keep their negativity and rumor-mongering to themselves. It would be great if Santa could bring each of your employees the gift of discretion this year. As someone wise said, “Discretion is the ability to raise your eyebrow instead of your voice.”
  • Employees who appreciate feedback and even criticism because it makes them better at their job. I have often thought that the clearest sign of maturity in an employee is his ability to accept constructive criticism, or even better, to ask for it. So, I wish for you employees who know that wisdom comes from humility and accountability. You deserve those employees who are not afraid to find out if they made a mistake and to ask you the best course to avoid such mistakes in the future.
  • Employees who take pride in their work regardless of who gets the credit. “My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition.” – Indira Ghandi. Enough said.

Such employees sound like a dream, like a Christmas wish, don’t they? But you probably know that the best way to cultivate such employees is to lead from the top down. You must be the type of leader whose character, work ethic, sobriety, discretion and integrity are unquestionable if that is the type employee you want to employ.

As I have said before in my blog posts: “You will get the employees you deserve if you are quick-tempered, unfair, dishonest, prejudiced, undependable, selfish or disloyal to your employees. Your values, good or bad, will set the standard for everyone you supervise.”