She Owns It
Portraits of women entrepreneurs.
In a recent post, the members of the She Owns It business group talked about the prospects of successfully rehabilitating an employee who isn’t working out. That discussion continues in this post.
Susan Parker, who owns Bari Jay, said she had come to realize that rehabilitation simply doesn’t work. Rather, she said, you need to hire the right people from the start. To do that, Ms. Parker said she knows she and her sister, who co-owns the company, will need to improve their interviewing techniques.
“I hate how we interview,” she said. “I feel like we talk, talk, talk, and the other person barely says anything, and then when they talk, they’re kind of hearing what we want,” she said. Going forward, she plans to change that, by experimenting with the interview techniques described in “Who,” a book on hiring that she’s finding helpful.
But becoming a great interviewer isn’t guaranteed to solve the problem. “You might not always find the right people because sometimes, especially when you’re growing, you don’t know what that person looks like,” said group member Jessica Johnson, who owns Johnson Security Bureau.
“And you’re also going to settle for a lot less because you don’t know any better,” said Beth Shaw, who owns YogaFit.
“But then you don’t keep those people on indefinitely when you realize that they may be better served in a place that’s a better match for them,” said Alexandra Mayzler, who owns Thinking Caps Group.
Deirdre Lord, who owns the Megawatt Hour, said that, while an owner must set expectations for each role and employee, “it’s not something you should have to do over and over again.” People make mistakes, but they shouldn’t keep making the same ones — and if they lack the right attitude or work ethic, there isn’t much hope that their performance will improve, she added.
Ms. Shaw agreed, but stressed the importance of sharing “nonnegotiable expectations” with employees. People may need to be told — once — that they have to respond to calls and e-mails within a day, she said.
Some employees may have never worked in a corporate environment where that’s the norm, Ms. Johnson said. “Particularly when you’re dealing with younger people who are relatively fresh out of school, their norms are very different so we have to have a sensitivity to that,” she said.
Ms. Shaw pointed out that employees with a corporate background may come with their own set of problems. Sometimes, she said, “those people end up not being able to perform in an entrepreneurial environment.”
“Correct, they don’t know how to operate,” Ms. Lord said.
A related issue arises when employees who excel at their day-to-day jobs are promoted to management — and fail, Ms. Parker said.
“That’s a big one,” Ms. Lord said. Getting an employee to return calls and e-mails promptly is one thing, but “you cannot teach people emotional intelligence, people skills,” she said. “People get elevated all the time who are so ill-equipped for management. Then what do you do?” she asked.
“You can’t demote them,” Ms. Shaw said.
They’ve become overcompensated, Ms. Parker added.
In future posts, we’ll revisit the owners’ management challenges and provide updates on the issues facing their businesses.
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Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/further-thoughts-on-employee-rehabilitation/?partner=rss&emc=rss
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