Two and a half tips for hiring GREAT employees (and avoiding dreadful ones)

Avoid troublesome employees and recruit great ones

For the past few months, actor Charlie Sheen's very public meltdowns have dominated the print, broadcast, and online media. TV producer Chuck Lorre, who in March 2011 fired Sheen from the hit CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men, would probably wish he'd never met the actor, were it not for the mountains of cash the show's ratings - borne of, in great part, Charlie's popularity - have brought him. Notwithstanding those mounds of cash, Sheen, with his outsize ego, erratic behavior, and various other issues, definitely seems like a nightmare employee. On a smaller and less public scale, however, employers in many companies across the country have dealt with their own versions of Charlie Sheen. In some cases, despite careful pre-employment screening, these bosses and HR professionals never saw the nightmares coming. How can you avoid troublesome employees and, more importantly, recruit - and keep - great ones?

The latter question is ever more important as the economy improves, more jobs become available, and dissatisfied employees feel freer to leave for better opportunities. In fact, according to a recent study from insurance and financial services company MetLife, only 47 percent of employees report feeling a "very strong loyalty" to their employers. That's a three-year low point, and down from 59 percent in 2008. (The Work Buzz)

To avoid an influx of inferior workers and an exodus of excellent ones, here are some principles to keep in mind:

1. Screen. Oh, sure, you screen your employees before you hire them (you do, don't you?). But sometimes even the most careful pre-employment screening process can overlook flaws that could be damaging to your company if you hire the person. And some companies don't screen carefully enough. These days, a superficial review of a resume and one or two interviews generally are not enough, particularly for sensitive or highly skilled positions. Resumes are inadequate because applicants are not always completely truthful. And interviewing by itself is unreliable because most of today's job seekers, fresh from the trenches of the Great Recession, are experts at interviewing. They read the advice from career columnists, they take the classes, they practice in front of the mirror, and they know what to say, how to act, and how to answer those questions you've so carefully crafted to catch them off guard. Even skilled interviewers can have trouble seeing past the performance in order to zero in on an applicant's true attitudes and ability to interact with fellow employees, bosses, and clients. To complicate matters, many companies fail to properly train managers in interviewing techniques. What's the solution? Some experts suggest behavior assessments and personality trait testing, as well as aptitude testing for various work-related skills. Granted, some tests are controversial, they're not 100% foolproof, and testing can be expensive. But more and more companies are using at least one assessment during the interviewing process, and are reporting good results, as measured in employee retention. Here's a link to more information about personality testing: http://www.behaviorprofile.com. Properly administrated, an assessment can not only flag the bad players but can spotlight the great ones. As for drug/substance screening, this is another controversial issue. Every company has its own policy. Just make sure that your policy is enforced fairly and with respect to the privacy and dignity of all involved.

2. Be seen. Okay, so you have your optimal work force in place. How do you keep them? Of the most common reasons for employee dissatisfaction, bad management surely rates near the top. Nearly thirty years ago, Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman popularized the term, Management By Wandering Around (MBWA), in their bestseller In Search of Excellence. This is exactly what it sounds like, and refers to a casual and unstructured style of management that involves "spontaneous" visits to various employees and work areas, in order to get a clearer picture of what's going on in the company. While this probably led in some cases to a type of "structured spontaneity" that was fodder for the expected office humor, there's still a lot of merit in the idea. If your business is pretty small and your staff minimal, you're probably a MBWA type anyway. If your company is larger and you have many employees, it might be more of a challenge to interact with all of them. But you should do your best to be a presence in the workplace anyway. Although micromanaging and breathing down your workers' necks probably serve no one very well, you shouldn't sequester yourself in your office either. Be engaged, and accessible.

½ . Don't be mean
Respect your employees. Always remember they're human beings, not interchangeable work units. If you expect the best from your workers, remember that it's a two-way street: they have the right to expect the best from you.
Hiring can be tricky, but firing is no fun for anyone. If you screen carefully in the beginning, and then do everything you can to encourage loyalty in your work force, you should be able to avoid the type of problems that a certain frazzled TV producer had with a certain "warlock." And that spells a happy ending for everyone.