| Welcome to the June 9, 2004 issue of The Total View
Published by Success Performance
Solutions, Written by Ira S. Wolfe
- Hire Competence with Confidence - June 22, 2004 in Lancaster,
PA
- Employee Interviews - Looking Through Rose-Colored Glasses
- Summer/Fall Workshop and Speaking Schedule
- Perfect Labor Storm Alerts #176 to #180
- Ethical Shenanigans: How Secure is Your Business?
- SELECT - A Pre-employment Screening Tool
- DISC Behavioral Style Indicator/Sales Style Indicator
- What Interview Questions Can You Ask
- NEW Article Published: Online Recruiting Cuts Time to Hire
- The Whole Person Approach To Competency ID and Employee Evaluation
A special 3-hour workshop on June 22, 2004 at The Hampton Inn, Lancaster
(PA)
Hire Competence with Confidence - Participation is limited to first
20. Join Ira S. Wolfe as leads this hands-on workshop - perfect
for small business owners and hiring managers. Only $49 which includes
credit for valuable assessments and books valued at over $250.
Call 717.656.4632 to reserve your seat or email - mailto:allisond@super-solutions.com
HELP! Please Bail Me Out (and help Jerry's kids too). I will be
arrested and put in jail for the Muscular Dystrophy Association
(MDA) Lock-Up. Don't even bother asking what crime I have committed
it's not really that important. I just have to raise my bail of
$3,000 before the Lock-Up and they will go easy on me, but I need
your financial assistance to post my bond. Please lend your support
during the: Lancaster North Lock-Up at The Eden Resort and Conference
Center.
Your 100% tax-deductible donation will help MDA continue research
into the cause and the possible cure of the 43 neuromuscular diseases
they cover. Your support of the MDA Lock-Up will also help MDA provide
wheelchairs, clinic visits and summer camp for the families served
by the Association in our local area.
Bail-out
Ira form
Continued from June
2, 2004 - Putting Observation to the Test.
To view Part 1, go to http://www.super-solutions.com/remote.asp?ltk=955466_7540958
Last week's column ended discussing how we see the world often
biases our opinions and judgement, which significantly lowers the
reliability of the interview in selecting the right people for the
job.
In the June 8, 2004 edition of the Wall Street Journal, Columnist
Joann S. Lublin wrote about "How Looks, Hygiene Affects Hiring".
To read her column, visit
http://www.super-solutions.com/remote.asp?ltk=955467_7540958.
(If for some reason, this link does not work visit www.wsj.com or
contact me at wsjarticle@super-solutions.com.)
In her column, she and her readers describe our personal biases
that are easily explained by our six motivators described in my
new book, Understanding Business Values and Motivators, and personality
assessment called Business
Values and Motivators.
Employee Interviews - Looking Through Rose-Colored
Glasses?
In addition to looking through our own rose-colored glasses, how
likely is it that your mood at any one moment in time might affect
your ability to interview fairly and without bias?
Suppose for a minute that you have an interview scheduled in five
minutes. Just as you are about to go down to the conference room,
you receive a frantic call from your son who was just arrested for
drugs. Or you are waiting on pins and needles to receive the results
of a suspicious biopsy? Or you just got off the phone with your
biggest customer and they cancelled the contract for next year -
could any of these situations affect your interviewing and observation
objectivity? If so, then the interview does not stand up to the
test of reliability required to be used alone in hiring and promotion
decisions.
Any time your opinions and judgment can be affected by your emotions
and/or the emotions of the candidates, then reliability goes down
the tubes. The lower the reliability, the less defensible is your
decision. And the less defensible, the more risk you and your company
are exposed to.
As a result of the Internet, the interview is becoming even more
unreliable than ever. We've all read at one time or other the list
of what you can and cannot legally ask a candidate. (Download Our
SPS Interview
Guide to Questions You Can and Can't Ask.
Frustrated by not knowing what to ask a candidate, many managers
hop on the Internet right before the interview and download a list
of questions. The problem with using the Internet to build your
bank of questions is that many candidates have raided the cookie
jar before managers get there. Candidates simply are learning the
ins and outs of how to use the Internet to get jobs faster than
hiring managers are learning to use it for hiring.
As an example of what's going on, we recently added the phrase interview
questions to our list of targeted search engine words. This seemed
like a great way to attract web searchers to our Interview
Generator, a program to generate behavioral interview guides.
The good news was that our traffic doubled during the month of May.
The bad news is that ten times more candidates found our site looking
for the questions they would be asked than managers were requesting
information about how to conduct a more effective interview. Candidates
have the time and motivation to prepare for their interviews. Managers
don't. They are so busy doing other things that their good intentions
get waylaid.
When working with candidates, it is also not uncommon for them to
complain about how unprepared or unskilled the interviewer was at
running the interview. When well-prepared candidates meet the inexperienced
or untrained interviewer, the candidate actually controls the pace
and direction of the interview, impressing the hiring manager with
his or her confidence but essentially biasing the whole process.
Many organizations are losing the battle for top talent because
their selection process turns off the candidate. For top talent,
it is still a candidate's market and businesses can't afford to
let the good ones get away.
Another problem with just using questions that sound good is that
great questions for one job may just not be that predictive of success
in another. For instance, many times managers ask us to recommend
questions to uncover self-motivation and the ability to work independently.
Here's the rub. By asking a candidate how he or she took initiative
in a prior job and worked independently is only the first step.
You as the interviewer need to dig deeper which means that you not
only have to be good at asking questions but even more importantly
at listening to how the candidate responds and then asking another
question.
What happens all too often is that the inexperienced interviewer
is impressed by the candidate's first response and they move on
to another question. The skilled interviewer knows better - dig
deeper to learn the how, why, when and who else was involved.
By accepting at face value the candidate's response to how they
motivate themselves and work independently, managers often find
themselves in for a BIG surprise. Those very employees who wowed
you during the interview with their initiative often begin making
decisions on their own without your permission and rarely asking
for help, even when they need it.
That was probably not what you had in mind when you considered self-motivation.
It's now apparent that taking initiative and willing to act independently
have shades of gray and despite great questions and the right answers,
the interview didn't pull out the information that you really needed
to know - that is, how will the employee follow policy when no one
else is around and how effective will these decisions be?
Employee interviews on the whole test for past behaviors; personality
tests can help preview how they will respond in the future.
And one more thing. What makes the interview even more unpredictable
is that not only does the interviewer need to be unbiased and objective,
but the interviewee must be honest in his/her responses. HA! Isn't
the job of the interviewee to sell you on their abilities? What
are the chances that a candidate has not prepped for the interview,
especially for more key and strategic positions, or will not stretch
the truth anywhere from just a bit to pure fabrication in order
to put his/her best foot forward?
The interview is laced with traps for falsehoods and inaccuracies
and yet it remains in the minds of many managers as the best predictor
of success and the safest choice for employee assessment.
What can a hiring manager do to lower the risk of hiring the wrong
person? You'll have to wait until next week's issue of The Total
View.....or call us today for a no-cost consultantion.
To learn more about hiring best practices, download the U.S. Department
of Labor publication, TESTING
AND ASSESSMENT: AN EMPLOYER'S GUIDE TO GOOD PRACTICES.
Reduce your risk and hire competence with confidence. Visit our
assessment center at http://www.super-solutions.com/assessmentcenter.asp.
Not sure which assessments to choose. View on our online employee
assessment guide including DISC, Business Values and Motivators,
and TotalView at
http://www.super-solutions.com/selecttherighttest.asp.
Summer 2004 Workshop and Speaking Schedule
June 14, 2004 Understanding Business Values and Motivators, National
Rural Electric Cooperative Association, San Diego, CA
June 22, 2004 How to Hire Competence with Confidence, sponsored by
Success Performance Solutions, Hampton Inm Lancaster. Limited seating.
8:30 to 11:30 AM. Only $49. Call 717.656.4632 to reserve your seat
today.
July 26, 2004. Recruiting, Training, and Retaining a Diverse Nursing
Workforce, Sponsored by Healthcare IQ, Radisson Hotel, Chicago, IL.
Ira will join leaders at this event from University of Pittsburgh
Medical Center, Baylor Health Care System, Northwestern Memorial Hospital
and Duke University and Health Systems. To vie the conference schedule,
http://www.super-solutions.com/remote.asp?ltk=955474_7540958
August 18-20, 2004 - CriteriaOne Train-the-Trainer: How to Identify
Competencies and Use Assessments for Hiring, Promoting, and Managing
Performance. The Hampton Inn, Lancaster, PA. Call 717.656.4632 for
more information and to reserve your seat. Limit - 10.
September 1, 2004 - Ethical Shenanigans: How Susceptible Is Your Business?
Small Business Group Breakfast. To reserve your place, call The Lancaster
Chamber at 717.394.3531. Speaker: Ira S. Wolfe
September 13, 2004 - What is This Thing Called Emotional Intelligence
.And Why We Need It In The Workplace?" Sponsored by Clemson University;
Location - Harrisburg, PA. Speaker: Marilyn Walker
September 27, 2004 Best Practices in Performance Consulting, Atlanta,
GA. Sponsored by International Quality and Productivity Center. Speaker:
Ira S. Wolfe. Ira will join leaders from Dell, Microsoft, HomeBanc,
Harley-Davidson,Hewlett-Packard, Putnam Investments, EDS, Synovus
and Internal Revenue Service. Perfect Labor
Storm Alerts #176 to #180 -
Fact #176 - There are 2 million people locked up in federal, state,
and county facilities. More than 6 million people are under state
supervision in the form of parole or probation.
Fact #177 - One out of every 130 people will serve prison time at
some point in their lives.
Fact #178 - One of every three young (20-29) African American men
are under some kind of correctional control-whether they are imprisoned,
paroled, or on probation.
Fact #179 - There are almost 100,000 women in US prisons today.
Almost all of these women are single mothers.
Fact #180 - States are spending more money on prisons than education.
Over the course of the last 20 years, the amount of money spent on
prisons was increased by 570% while that spent on elementary and secondary
education was increased by only 33%.
Source: Coalition Against The American Correctional Association
*********************************************************************
Yes - there are workers for hire. Just like during the late 1990's,
prisons have an ample supply of candidates. But do they have the skills
and work ethics you want? As employers begin to hire and expand, many
will be unprepared to survive The Perfect Labor Storm. Will you?
"The Perfect Labor
Storm Fact Book: Why Worker Shortages Won't Go Away" is HERE!
Order your copy today - $7.95 includes no shipping costs for limited
time only.
http://www.super-solutions.com/remote.asp?ltk=955475_7540958
Schedule Ira Wolfe today to speak to your organization about What's
Ahead In Hiring Trends.
Ethical Shenanigans: How secure is your business?
Every day, employees are faced with moral dilemmas at work. Ethics
involves determining what is right or wrong in the workplace, then
doing the right thing. How do you know if your employees know the
differencebetween right and wrong and how do you know if they will
make the right choices when confronted with difficult decisions?
Schedule Ira Wolfe today for ethics training. During these workshops,
Ira will highlight ethical challenges faced by today's employer
and employee, followed by small-group discussions about how managers
and small business owners are dealing with:
- E-mails and the Internet
- Proprietary Information
- Conflicts of Interest
- Intellectual Property and Copyright
- Gifts from Suppliers, Vendors and Subcontractors
- Forced Ranking Performance Reviews
- Hiring and Promotion Practices
- Sexual, gender, race, and cultural discrimination
- Target-based incentives
- Whistle-blowing
Ira is currently enrolled in the graduate degree program in Leadership
and Business Ethics at Duquesne University.
SELECT!
A pre-employment screening tool to identify work-related behaviors
such as Positive Service Attitude, Accountability, Frustration Tolerance,
Acceptance of Diversity, Multi-tasking and more.... plus a Validity
Check and Integrity Index.
Each customized report includes a step by step interview guide including
recommended interview questions.
SELECT is scored on-line but can be administered on paper or computer.
The following report versions are available:
- Customer Service
- Administrative Support
- Retail Sales Associates
- Entry Level Retail Management
- Call Centers
- Production & Distribution
- Healthcare
- Personal Service
- Convenience Store Associates
- Hospitality
- Office Staffing
To learn more about SELECT and other pre-employment tests, click
here.
DISC Behavioral Style Indicator and DISC Sales Style Indicator
reports assess how an employee will deal with problems,
interact with people, comply with rules and procedures, and the
pace at which he or she will work. To view a sample report, click
here.
How do your employees fit on your team. MAP your entire team on
our Style Insights Wheel. Identify strengths and minimize conflicts
easily.
Get
the wheel online. It's included FREE with each DISC Behavioral
Style Indicator and DISC Sales Style Indicator Report.
NEW Article Published: Online
Recruiting Cuts Time to Hire
CriteriaOne.: The Whole Person Approach to Competency Identification
and Performance Management
Become a certified CriteriaOne consultant. Learn to identify competencies,
complete a job analysis and interpret behavioral, values and personality
assessments. The next Train-the-Trainer will be held from August
18-20, 2004 in Lancaster PA.
Register
online or call 717.656.4632.
In The News!
Consultant's certification plan pays off
In the Sunday Patriot News (May 24, 2004), columnist Azriela Jaffe
wrote: "When I lived in Lancaster, I met a business consultant,
Ira Wolfe, who ran a consulting firm, Success Performance Solutions.
I was curious how he was faring these days."
Read
the full column
Summer Internships are back - Ira Wolfe was one of several consultants
interviewed by Sherry Slater, a writer for the Fort Wayne (IN) Journal
- Gazette for a story on summer interns. To
read more.
Contact Information:
Success Performance Solutions 2481 New Holland Pike, Suite 2, Lancaster,
PA 17601
email: iwolfe@super-solutions.com
voice: 717.656.4632
web: http://www.super-solutions.com
To learn more about Success Performance Solutions or read back issues
of The Total View, stop by our website at www.super-solutions.com.
Order your personal copy of Understanding Business Values and Motivators
at
http://www.understandingbvm.com
Order your personal copy of The Perfect Labor Storm at
http://www.perfectlaborstorm.com.
Ira S. Wolfe. 2004 - All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution
by permission only.
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