Five Essential Hiring Practices
Recruiting and hiring are often done in haste, leaving the company to repent in the long run. Today, there's a reason to be concerned about negligent hiring. Negligent hiring means you and your company can be sued if one of your hires injures other employees, especially if you could have foreseen a problem but did not do a thorough check of the new employee before hiring.
The following list of five essential hiring practices establishes the minimum you should follow:
1. Require outside testing. Allow a competent, impartial professional interviewer to administer both paper and pencil and verbal tests. Professional testing firms can administer valid psychological tests for intelligence, stability, even determinations of addictive or dishonest personalities, as well as skills tests of important technical abilities in your workforce. I find testing often validates a suspicion I already had but wasn't yet ready to come to terms with.
2. Conduct a rigorous personal interview. This includes asking general attitude questions, how you would manage your boss questions, how you would manage your staff questions, questions relating to the applicant's understanding of the financial workings of a business and your department's role in the business's overall success, questions relating to the applicant's ability to set goals and his or her expectations about achieving goals, questions relating to specific skills required for the job, and general communications required by the job.
3. Arrange a peer group interview. This part of the process encourages applicants to speak more freely and helps determine how comfortable they will be in working with their peers. Follow up with a meeting of everyone involved in the hiring decision to determine if there is a group consensus about the applicant's suitability for work at your company.
4. Do a background check. Don't neglect this, even if it is an employee's cousin or your competitor's best salesperson. It's very easy to set up an account with an investigative firm online and to relatively quickly and inexpensively find out if the applicant has a criminal record or a history of DMV problems, lawsuits involving previous employers, workers' compensation claims, and so forth.
5. Do a reference check. You can conduct these over the phone, but they may involve a request in writing. Reference checking is less effective than it used to be, although you may still find a few people who are willing to talk. Most former employers play it safe and verify only dates of employment and salary.
Document that you took all of these steps and you've gone a long way toward protecting yourself against a charge or negligent hiring. And more importantly, you've taken the first steps toward finding an employee who can trust and with whom you can establish a successful employment relationship.
About The Author
Jan B. King is the former President & CEO of Merritt Publishing, a top 50 woman-owned and run business in Los Angeles and the author of Business Plans to Game Plans: A Practical System for Turning Strategies into Action (John Wiley & Sons, 2004). She has helped hundreds of businesses with her book and her ebooks, The Do-It-Yourself Business Plan Workbook, and The Do-It-Yourself Game Plan Workbook. See www.janbking.com for more information.
You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the byline is included. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated.
Latest News
Single Source Introduces New Advanced Quote Management (AQM)(TM ... MarketWatch - All functions seamlessly integrate to the inherent back-office financials, inventory, purchasing and management reporting functionality of SM-Plus-meeting ... KANA Recognized by Leading Industry Publications for Innovation ... |
 RTE.ie | ECONOMIC REPORT Global manufacturing gauges collapse in November MarketWatch - ... of price pressures hit an all-time low, according to a survey of corporate purchasing managers released Monday by the Institute for Supply Management. ... Manufacturing index drops to 26-year low Manufacturing index at 26-year low Manufacturing hits 26-year low |
Gideon Technologies CEO To Give Unified Compliance Management ... MarketWatch - Unified Compliance Management simplifies this complex problem. "The combination of a holistic centralized view of the network, unified and continuous ... |
 WCBD | Price Tags on Partridges and Pear Trees: A Different CPI New York Times, United States - By Catherine Rampell For the last 24 years, PNC Wealth Management (or its predecessor, Provident Bank) has released this whimsical index, a measure of the ... Video: 12 Days of Christmas' Items Would Cost $86,609 '12 Days of Christmas' items would cost $86609 Twelve Days of Christmas would cost $21000 |
 Reuters | AIG sells wealth management unit to Abu Dhabi group International Herald Tribune, France - NEW YORK: American International Group, the troubled insurance giant, said Monday that it had agreed to sell its wealth management provider AIG Private Bank ... AIG Sheds A Private Bank UPDATE 1-AIG to sell AIG Private Bank to UAE's Aabar AIG to Sell Private Bank to Aabar |
Lincoln Financial Group Announces New Senior Management Committee ... International Business Times, NY - She will also serve as amember of the firm's Senior Management Committee. Bettinger-Buckingham joins Lincoln Financial with more than 20 years ofexperience ... |
The Apogee Companies, a Leading Property Management Company ... MarketWatch - "These upcoming new deals will broaden our abilities to grow throughout the US" The Apogee Companies is a leader in property and real estate management with ... |
Research and Markets: Training Management Maturity Model: A ... MarketWatch - How effective is your current training management system? What do you need to do to improve it? Find out with this best practice model and set of assessment ... Research and Markets: Fundamentals of Quality Control and ... |
Tendenci(R) Online Management Software Helps Housing Authority of ... MarketWatch - Tendenci's rich content management system makes it simple to add and edit content on the HACLA Web site, which means the information stays current and the ... |
Research and Markets: Software as a Service Human Resource ... MarketWatch - Human resources management - or human capital management, to use the trendier term - was one of the first markets addressed by software-as-a-service (SaaS) ... |
Resources
-
AdWords | Google AdWords | 21 Ways to Maximize ROI by Andrew Goodman
Get the original Google AdWords handbook by Andrew Goodman. This 155-page e-book is packed with advanced tips to help you maximize your AdWords campaigns. Download and get free December 2005 update.
-
Reservation software for Hotels, Motels, Bed and breakfast
Reservation software for Hotels, Motels, Bed and breakfast
-
Restaurant Checklists: restaurant menu design, cafe training, business plans, restaurant marketing a
Full package of restaurant information including restaurant menu design, training, restaurant business plans, restaurant marketing and Management forms and templates
-
Castlemelody.com: Web design and creative design of graphics
Web design with content Management system for dynamic and flexible websites.
-
...MySoftwareTemplates.com high-quality Microsoft Word templates for Software
Development, Proposal
Write successful Proposals, White Papers, Case Studies with slick templates, checklist and forms.
-
Living Within Your Means - The Easy Way!
"
-
PARENTING TOOLS to design the family of your dreams! What does your dream family look like?
Powerful tools for parenting, anger Management, and creative blocks!
-
Productivity. Improve business productivity through work measurement and method study.
Set of resources to improve worker, workplace and office productivity. Learn to measure productivity, calculate a productivity index and construct a total factor productivity index. Resources include team productivity and employee productivity.
-
Construction Information Services - Construction Management
Construction Information Services include Construction Management ebooks - Construction Software - Articles - Firm directories - Forecasting and Trends of the building industry
-
Landlord Property Management Rental Guide
Looking to manage your own rental property? Use our beginners guide for landlords and rental property investors!