Raising Employees

Handling employees is akin to raising children.  There are rules to follow and if you let them get away with ignoring the rules they learn that nothing you say matters.  How do you deal with a three year old in a full-blown tantrum?  Time-out is one way.  What's the grown up equivalent of that?  Suspension.  You get the idea.  Just like I have to parent each of my children differently, each employee must be handled differently as well.  The difference is that adults SHOULD be old enough to understand that the rules are applied fairly to everyone and the consequences are the same for everyone, but sometimes they don't.  Worst-case scenario... when one parent undermines the other.  This also happens in business... HR says you must follow the rules and the manager vetoes it.  It's infuriating and can lead to the HR Pro having a tantrum of their own.

Last night I sent my four-year-old to her room.  She and the two-year-old were playing outside and the baby ended up crying.  He can't articulate what happened, and appeared to be fine, but she wouldn't tell me.  I stressed that if it was an accident she wouldn't be in trouble.  To no avail, she refused to spill so she went upstairs until dinner.  After pressing and watching which questions made her go silent, I'm pretty sure she pushed him down after an argument of some sort.  Luckily when Dad got home he sided with me.  We make a conscious effort to present a united front at all times.  I desperately try to foster this with my managers as well, but sometimes it just doesn't happen.

Preschool

My middle child had an orientation for her new preschool today.  We had a fabulous morning!!  We Mom slept in a little, we sent big sister to school, dropped little brother off to daycare, drove through Mickey D's for a parfait treat and took it to Mom's office.  Everyone fawned over her and at first she lavished the attention, but gradually decided it was too much and shied away.  I had a few things to accomplish, so she happily sat at my desk and chatted a thousand miles an hour and ate her parfait while Mom did boring things on the computer.  When it was time we held hands and skipped to the car (dropping the parfait in the parking lot, which made both of us giggle and hope local wildlife enjoy strawberries) and went to orientation.  We skipped into the building, met her teacher, played tag in the gym, had a snack and listened to the rules, then skipped back to the car to join little brother at daycare.

Thanks for the best morning I've had in a very long time, my way-too-big-too-soon baby girl.  I hope you have an amazing experience in your new school, and while I know you probably won't remember today just know that it meant the world to me to share it with you.

New Directions

I'm switching things up a bit here.  For more professional content, please visit me here.  I also want to keep this one open for personal musings, but after stalking reading tips from some of my favorite bloggers and having a conversation with one of them I've decided that using too much personal in my professional blog just isn't gonna cut it for what I want to do.  No matter how much I want it to.  

I made the kids pancakes last night for dinner.  Dad was at a dinner, so the kids and I had scrambled eggs and apple cinnamon pancakes.  We also had a picnic in the front room while watching a movie.  All sorts of rules were broken at my house last night, but sometimes we just need to switch it up a bit.  I do, however, miss the time we spend at the table.  I still talked to them about their day and they helped make dinner, but there's just something about sitting down and sharing a meal together that solidifies our connections.  Mostly because they're all forced to sit still for 30 seconds.  I have this magical fairy-tale vision of us sitting around the table eating together, but let's be honest.  Out of seven tries a week, more on the weekends, this happens once, maybe twice.  I serve the kids first because they've been screaming at each other and at me like hungry savages and pillaging the fridge, making getting an actual meal put together nearly impossible.  Dad gets his next, because he's close behind desperately herding them and making sure they have forks while I dish.  By the time I get to dish mine someone realizes nobody has a drink, so I fill three cups with whatever beverage is demanded.  Typically three different beverages.  Just as I get my food and settle into my place at the table to enjoy some quality family time, three children announce they are, "ALL DONE!" and race off to their former squabbling over the same toy.  Well, so much for family time, but I can still spend the time with Hubby.  Nice try, Mom.  This is when they all decide that I need to know RIGHT NOW that Baby wants to give me a hug, or I have to break up a fight, or they start asking questions like, "What is the meaning of life?"  This doesn't happen all at once, of course.  This happens as soon as I'm ten seconds into telling Hubby about something that happened today, or he's just beginning to tell me about his, and continues in 30 or 60 second intervals throughout the rest of the night.  Yes, dear, my day was fine.  I hope yours was too.  Call me at 10:00 tomorrow morning after you've had your coffee and we'll discuss it then.  For now we need to hug Baby and explain life, because too soon my babies won't need Mom to break up their fights.

Interviewing the Masses

My interviewing style has evolved over the years.  At first I sat quietly in the corner and listened to everyone else ask questions.  If I had to speak to them by myself, I would ask four or five short questions and give them a green light.  I still hesitate to completely discount someone unless they absolutely cannot carry on a conversation.  I went from not knowing how to talk to a candidate to having a list of prepared questions ahead of time.  I still like having prepared questions for positions that have a lot of openings, high turnover, low autonomy, several qualified candidates, etc.  If someone gives me a particular answer to one of these I will expand on it.  When interviewing with a partner or a panel I also like to have this list to make sure we don't miss anything.  Having a list or other notes helps me feel prepared and gives me something to fill the time with those candidates who cannot manage to tell me about themselves.

Compiling Questions 

To compile this list I take a look at the requirements and speak with the supervisors involved.  I like to think I have a good hold on the business model and how it works, but every time I have this conversation I find out something new.  I also like speaking with those who are particularly successful in this position.  What do they do differently?  What do they think makes them successful?  Then come up with behavior based questions for those qualities.  Remember we're talking about questions for the masses, such as Customer Service Reps in a call center or production line employees.  These don't need to be akin to rocket building, but just general "Tell me about a time you received constructive criticism and how you dealt with it."  For the most part these candidates are recent high school grads or individuals with a short work history, so they don't have a lot of knock-it-out-of-the-park experience to draw from.  Simple dependability and work ethic is all I'm looking for outside of the basic competencies.

Critics

I worked with an individual who was adamantly opposed to having a prepared list of questions.  Perfect, I'm a reasonable person who likes to explore new options, so let's hear your alternative.  His solution was to simply try to have a conversation with them.  Okay, I'm good with that.  There are things we need to know they can do and qualities we need to look for, but if you don't want to ask the questions we've come up with I'm more than happy to find out other ways.  He literally started the interview by asking if they could work the schedule we had open.  When the candidate said yes, he said, "Great!  You can start Monday!" and walked out.  Ah... not what I had in mind when I said you didn't have to ask the questions we had listed.  I buy into first impressions meaning a lot, and I have known within ten seconds of meeting someone that I absolutely would not hire them, but there needs to be a bit more content before handing someone a job.  You're influencing more than just the statistical numbers, there's more to this than just ensuring that a New Hire Orientation is full.  The wrong hire, even for a minimum wage job, is costly and will mess up an entire system.

We're changing lives here, people.

More on Changing Lives

I received this article between meetings earlier today.  For those who don't wish to read an entire additional article, it is titled 5 Really Good Reasons You Should Consider Becoming a Mentor and the first one listed is, "You can change the world for someone."  The message struck a chord with me as I am in this transitional period in my career (and also fits nicely into this I wrote a few days ago).  I'm actually leading people for the first time, not just asking the receptionist to file a few things and make sure I have food for my open enrollment meetings.  I have been technically over people on the org chart before, but they never really acknowledged me as the one to give them feedback and be their manager.  I feel empowered to help my people become the best they can be.  I wrote this quote by Kris Dunn on a sticky and put it on my monitor: 

"I'm not here to just grind on you to get results.  I'm here to make you better, so you're going to have fun, make more $$ over time and accomplish your career goals while we get results for the company.  I'm willing to do that even if it means you promote yourself by taking a better job with another company because we made you better."  

I want to be the Change Agent for my team.  I want to be sad when they go, but not devastated and wondering how the hell our business is going to continue to run.  I want to support them and allow them to grow, whether that's by forcing them to be interchangeable with each other so they understand how one action affects the rest of the business or allowing them to shift their hours around school schedules.  I want to enable each of them to be confident and make decisions with the company's best interests in mind, and subtly remove the panic button when one of them wants to take a vacation.  Nobody should be chained to their job, there is so much more to life.  I never want them to feel like they can't take a day off or scoot out early on a day there are no providers in the office, provided they are keeping up with their work.  Others should understand their position enough to cover for an absence.  I want each of them to work on improvements and feel their contributions are weighty and appreciated.  I want to provide as much guidance as they would like and be available for them at all times, but not let them use me as a safety net.  I have dreams for them and our company, but mostly I want to help them attain their dreams.

Ignoring a Hunch and Rectifying When It Goes Wrong

When I first started in my current position there were several staffing issues.  In a relatively small office of 45 people, two of them blatantly didn't want to be there, several were toxic gossipers, and still several others were in the wrong positions for their strengths.  It took me about a month to clean out those who didn't want to be there.  I sat down with one and asked her what she wanted to do with her life.  She resigned the next day and sang my praises.  This gained me significant credibility with the board and I was placed in a permanent seat in all decision making meetings.  The other resigned a week later for a position that would relocate her closer to her sister, one step ahead of my plan to move her into a less stressful role.  During this time we had an eager young student come to us.  Everyone who worked with her said she did a good job, although she was quiet she did whatever she was asked while she was here.  I made a sacrificial lamb out of the gossip at the front desk and had a dream of the perfect candidate for that role.  I interviewed a few different qualified individuals but, in spite of my reservations about the Quiet Girl, my optimism got the better of me and I offered her the position.  She already had knowledge of how the office works, she was familiar with our Practice Management system, and everyone seemed to think she picked things up quickly.  This left me with a Superstar and the Quiet Girl as our two front desk associates.  Fast forward almost three months and Quiet Girl is just not getting it.  Her quietness isn't nervousness, it's lack of confidence.  In everything.  She was great as a student and given one task, but to multitask at the front desk is beyond her abilities.  We had 80 patients yesterday for one provider, she checked in 12 of them.  TWELVE.  For a little perspective, the girl who started yesterday checked in six during an afternoon at our other (far less busy) office.  I should have gone with my instinct and just thanked Quiet Girl for her time as an extern, but I had hoped that she would be able to speak up for herself once she got some training.  I had a discussion with her last week regarding her training and time here.  She seems to think everything is fine and she's happily asking the same question for the 12th time and driving my Superstar absolutely crazy.  I feel responsible for helping her, I genuinely want to see her succeed, but I'm afraid this is clouding my ability to release her back into the wild.  The plan is to pull her aside and have a genuine discussion, point out some specific examples of what she needs to improve on, and stop just short of placing her on a written PIP.  The biggest problem is that we just hired another provider, so we absolutely cannot afford to have someone not pulling their own weight while I get another new MA up to speed.  I figure I have to give her a week to work out her issues, which doesn't seem like a fair amount of time, but this is where the business partner side comes into play and I have to do what is best for the company.  I firmly believe it is a disservice to an employee to keep them somewhere they are not going to succeed, but I just have such a hard time admitting defeat and getting rid of her so soon.  Wish me luck on helping her reach her potential, whether that's here or somewhere else.

Happy Monday!

I always start conversations with my best friend this way on Monday mornings.  We're two time zones away, so sometimes this gets to her at 5:00 a.m. and sometimes she sends it to me at 1:00 p.m., but we both know it means, "Here's to another week, may we survive until Thirsty Thursday and the weekend!"  So, my friends, Happy Monday!

When I dropped my kids off to the Angel sitter this morning I encouraged them to tell her about our weekend.  Always curious to find out what they've remembered, I never prompt with, "Tell Angel about the art fair..." but rather, "What did we do this weekend?"  Typically they start with what happened last night (We had family game night!  We watched a movie and had popcorn!) and work backwards.  This morning my eldest immediately blurts out, "We went grocery shopping!!"  Um... okay... do you recall the last day of swimming lessons where you got to ride in a canoe?  How about the art festival?  Or our trip to the gigantic playground?  Monopoly?  Nope... my children remember I managed to feed them.  I guess the alternative could be, "My Mom pushed me down the stairs," which was the answer she gave her daycare provider at the tender young age of TWO and caused a bit of a ruckus.  Luckily she had been going to this particular provider for awhile, so the director knew she wasn't an abused child, but her teacher that day was new and apparently immediately marched her down to the front office.

This morning dawned with a new opportunity... we have a new employee starting today.  I have been anticipating this event for awhile, my chance to start fresh and get onboarding right, to show off the new office team that I am so proud of and prove that we can integrate a new employee and make them feel welcome.  So far she's had to wait for me to finish printing off the handbook, been locked out of the computer system, can't take the Practice Management system training because they're doing maintenance work, and hasn't met half of the staff because nobody was in this morning when I took her around.  Hey, chances for improvement!!  There's always a silver lining.  I'm not calling it a complete failure because I'm an incurable optimist and I have the rest of the day to salvage.  I do also have to change over to a new payroll system to ensure everyone gets paid on Thursday, make decisions regarding our insurance renewal so nobody has a lapse in coverage, and take my daughter's birth certificate to her new school (yes, secretary, I remember that you need the birth certificate and a utility bill with our new address.  I haven't forgotten, I'm just juggling a lot of things and you're being shifted around the priority list because school doesn't start until Sept 3.  Thank you for making sure my kid can start on time and keeping the school organized.  Stop leaving me voicemails).  However, this eager new hire is my priority today and I want to start her career here on a positive note, without leaving her sitting around wondering what to do or where to find the restroom.  So I'm going to take her to lunch and to the other office and be available for questions at any time.  You can have the birth certificate and immunization records tomorrow, and the new payroll implementation specialist can call my cell phone.  I have a life to change today.