Job Performance, Employment Terminations And Dishonest Employee Interviews Can Be Dangerous; Pre-employment Screening Can Make It Safer – Part 2

Pre-employment Screening – 5                                                                                           WC Blog 274
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Job Performance, Employment Terminations And Dishonest Employee Interviews Can Be Dangerous; Pre-employment Screening Can Make It Safer – Part 2
      How do you conduct your job performance discussions with your employees? I’m not talking about the discussion with the high performing employee getting ready to be promoted. I’m referring to the talk you have to have with the employee who is not meeting expectations. What about the meeting you have to conduct to terminate an employee’s job? One that can be particularly difficult is the interview with the dishonest employee who has been stealing from your store. Each of these discussions can be very difficult and in some instances there are managers and business owners who do all they can to avoid these talks. It is not a comfortable position to have to end another person’s employment or accuse them of engaging in dishonest activity. If it is performance related you are telling that worker they are inadequate. In my career as a retail manager and library supervisor I have had to conduct all three types of interactions and it is never comfortable. As I mentioned in part 1 of this series, a manager never knows how his/her employee will react in the situation. Pre-employment screening can help to minimize the chance that the employees you hire have violent backgrounds that you don’t want in your workplace in the first place. In this article I want to give some tips to help managers understand the importance of having these discussions and how to prepare for them before talking to the employee.
     It is important to pause and review what a pre-employment screening is and how a background check company can help in your hiring process. A pre-employment screening is a review of an applicant’s record and verification against what they have entered on a job application. If an applicant indicates they have no felony convictions but in reality they have a prior assault conviction, a background check company can uncover this information. You may be hiring someone as a bookkeeper and they interview well but your conduct employee background checks and find out they have problems with debt and are behind on credit card payments. This would raise a red flag that this candidate could certainly be a concern for future employee theft. A background check company can verify if a person has lived where they said they have lived for the past 10 years. If they lied on the application and have moved frequently, what was the reason for the false information? Is the applicant avoiding legal issues or the police? The pre-employment screening process reduces the risk an employer takes when hiring a new worker.
     My stated purpose of this article is to explain the purpose of having the tough discussions with employees even when it is uncomfortable and tips on how to conduct them. It is not unheard of for managers to avoid calling an employee into an office to discuss performance problems. The mindset is frequently that the employee may improve on their own or maybe they will see they aren’t working out and will quit. It may even be that there is the expectation that everyone else will pick up that employee’s slack. Avoidance does not help anyone, anytime and actually will hurt the morale of the good workers.  Poor performance must be addressed and clear expectations established WITH deadlines and measurements for improvement. Ambiguous or general expectations are unfair to the employee and set them up for failure and will result in future uncomfortable conversations. Do NOT use an annual or semi-annual performance review as the time to address concerns. A review should never be a surprise to the employee. If a manager is talking with their workers during the year, and documenting conversations, that employee will already know what to expect.  If you complete employee background checks, you will not be rid of all performance issues, but you may have eliminated worse situations and you may have still hired the worker who can improve through additional training. 
     Performance management discussions tend to be the least confrontational of my “Big 3” employee talks. Employment termination and dishonest activity/employee theft interviews are the hardest and in part 3, I will talk about how they are different and how to prepare for and conduct these talks.  As I close this segment I want to reiterate the importance of conducting employee background checks using a background check company before a new person is hired to the team.  Any of these discussions can be hard, if a person has a violent history it can be dangerous.  Improve your chances of a smooth meeting by doing pre-employment screening.
Pre-employment screening is important and we can help you with it. Call 1.770.426.0547 and let’s talk.

How do you conduct your job performance discussions with your employees? I’m not talking about the discussion with the high performing employee getting ready to be promoted. I’m referring to the talk you have to have with the employee who is not meeting expectations. What about the meeting you have to conduct to terminate an employee’s job? One that can be particularly difficult is the interview with the dishonest employee who has been stealing from your store. Each of these discussions can be very difficult and in some instances there are managers and business owners who do all they can to avoid these talks. It is not a comfortable position to have to end another person’s employment or accuse them of engaging in dishonest activity. If it is performance related you are telling that worker they are inadequate. In my career as a retail manager and library supervisor I have had to conduct all three types of interactions and it is never comfortable. As I mentioned in part 1 of this series, a manager never knows how his/her employee will react in the situation. Pre-employment screening can help to minimize the chance that the employees you hire have violent backgrounds that you don’t want in your workplace in the first place. In this article I want to give some tips to help managers understand the importance of having these discussions and how to prepare for them before talking to the employee.
     

 

It is important to pause and review what a pre-employment screening is and how a background check company can help in your hiring process. A pre-employment screening is a review of an applicant’s record and verification against what they have entered on a job application. If an applicant indicates they have no felony convictions but in reality they have a prior assault conviction, a background check company can uncover this information. You may be hiring someone as a bookkeeper and they interview well but your conduct employee background checks and find out they have problems with debt and are behind on credit card payments. This would raise a red flag that this candidate could certainly be a concern for future employee theft. A background check company can verify if a person has lived where they said they have lived for the past 10 years. If they lied on the application and have moved frequently, what was the reason for the false information? Is the applicant avoiding legal issues or the police? The pre-employment screening process reduces the risk an employer takes when hiring a new worker.
     

 

My stated purpose of this article is to explain the purpose of having the tough discussions with employees even when it is uncomfortable and tips on how to conduct them. It is not unheard of for managers to avoid calling an employee into an office to discuss performance problems. The mindset is frequently that the employee may improve on their own or maybe they will see they aren’t working out and will quit. It may even be that there is the expectation that everyone else will pick up that employee’s slack. Avoidance does not help anyone, anytime and actually will hurt the morale of the good workers.  Poor performance must be addressed and clear expectations established WITH deadlines and measurements for improvement. Ambiguous or general expectations are unfair to the employee and set them up for failure and will result in future uncomfortable conversations. Do NOT use an annual or semi-annual performance review as the time to address concerns. A review should never be a surprise to the employee. If a manager is talking with their workers during the year, and documenting conversations, that employee will already know what to expect.  If you complete employee background checks, you will not be rid of all performance issues, but you may have eliminated worse situations and you may have still hired the worker who can improve through additional training. 
     

 

Performance management discussions tend to be the least confrontational of my “Big 3” employee talks. Employment termination and dishonest activity/employee theft interviews are the hardest and in part 3, I will talk about how they are different and how to prepare for and conduct these talks.  As I close this segment I want to reiterate the importance of conducting employee background checks using a background check company before a new person is hired to the team.  Any of these discussions can be hard, if a person has a violent history it can be dangerous.  Improve your chances of a smooth meeting by doing pre-employment screening.

 

Pre-employment screening is important and we can help you with it. Call 1.770.426.0547 and let’s talk.