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Employee Handbooks – Do You Have One?

I created quite a stir in ASTRALand last week. Someone posted the question on the listserve about employee handbooks. In my reply I offered to send a copy of our handbook and training checklist to anyone who wanted it. In short order I had 45 requests for copies of our handbook.

Apparently, handbooks are a hot topic in the independent toy world.

Do you have one for your employees?

If you don’t, the good news is that they aren’t as complicated as you think. The hardest part is getting started. Here’s what to do…

Write your manual on your computer.
Do a little at a time.
Update it every time you hire someone new or notice something you missed.
Give everyone a new copy of any section that changes (keeps it relevant).

It doesn’t have to be a complete and polished document on day one. It can be a work in progress.

Here are some of the things you should include:

  • Employment Policies – the basics of employment like Dress Codes, Vacation, Holiday & Sick Pay, Maternity Leave, Jury Duty, Payroll, Safety Policies, Emergency Procedures, Terminations, etc. (Yeah, it seems like a lot, but do it one heading at a time and it won’t take long.)
  • Store Procedures – this is where you list all the services you offer and the how’s & why’s of each service
  • Special Services – If you have certain services that require extra explanation, make a separate section for each, such as Cash Registers, Layaways, etc.
  • Training & Evaluation – Spell out how you will train and evaluate your employees.
  • Forms & Paperwork – If you have special paperwork or forms that need to be filled out, show how to do it properly.

There are many reasons to have a handbook like this.

  • Having written policies protects you when terminating someone for violating a policy
  • The handbook becomes an extra tool for training new employees. Not everyone learns the same way.
  • Putting your policies in writing forces you to evaluate why and how you do them, which helps you make your services better

Once you get it written, have your attorney look it over to make sure you aren’t doing anything blatantly illegal. And make sure you look it over every few months to see if anything has changed.

Employee handbooks are valuable to any business whether you have one or one hundred employees. Dust yours off and see if it has what it needs to be effective for you. And if you don’t have a handbook, send me an email and I’ll send you back what I do. You can use it as a template or reminder of which topics to include.

-Phil

PS I also sprinkle in a full dose of our store philosophies including our Character Diamond, and a section of difficult situations we encounter regularly and how to deal with them.

I’m Hiring Part 4 – The Interviews and the Aftermath

I asked each applicant to, “bring in one item that best represents you and be prepared to explain why.”

All 14 did an excellent job with this exercise, and the insights it gave me into what really makes them tick was well worth the effort. It also gave them one question for which they could be prepared, which helped some of them with their nerves.

Sure, you can argue that I got canned, prepared answers. But I would argue back that for the most part, I got honest, insightful answers that in some cases told me all I need to know and the canned answers are also quite telling. Plus, some of their answers led me to better questions than I had even prepared.

Mostly, however, we focused on behavioral-based questions that involved specific details of how they handled certain events in their past. Questions like…

Tell me about a time when you made a lasting, positive impression on a customer.

What is the most difficult decision you have ever had to make?

Describe your most remarkable achievement at work.

After each interview I gave myself a couple minutes to quickly write down first impressions. Sometimes that first impression was simply “No”. No sense wasting an extra minute of your time on someone who doesn’t fit the bill.

It didn’t take long to get from 14 down to 6. But I only needed three. How do you separate the rest? Reference calls.

I started by calling past employers. This is always tricky. They rarely give you anything but the run-around (especially chain stores). But there is a way to get around that. I will often ask if the person answering the phone knew the applicant. You can often tell from their response exactly what they thought about the applicant. One of my best hires was a gal that when I called her previous employer, the receptionist asked me how she was and how much they all missed her. From that little tidbit, I knew she would get along well with others.

If that isn’t enough (although it usually is) I would call their personal references.

Lastly, I prioritized the remaining 6 by comparing them side by side. Then it was simply doing that most favorite part of my job – calling and offering someone a job. My top 3 accepted. Two of them start tomorrow:-)

-Phil

PS Everyone that interviewed received either a personal call or letter explaining that they did not make the cut. I believe they deserve that.

I’m Hiring Part 3 – Who to Interview?

This is Part 3 in my quest to find the next great employee. (Read Part 1 and Part 2.)

In three weeks I have received 79 applications. I need to get that down to a more manageable number before I start interviews. Here are some of the steps I have taken to weed through the potential applicants to get my list of candidates to interview.

First, to make it on our team you have to get past the front line. When you turn in an application, the sales person accepting the application initials it. If she thinks to herself, “I really hope Phil doesn’t hire this person,” she’ll also mark the application with a simple “N”.

Any application with that “N” is done. Hey, if my staff doesn’t want to work with them, why would I want them on the team?

Second, I scrutinize each application. Any app not completely filled out also goes in the NO pile. Any app with major misspellings or extremely sloppy handwriting also gets yanked. If they do sloppy work there, you can bet they’ll do sloppy work on the job.

Surprisingly, this usually weeds out 60-70% of the applicants (yeah, you’d think people would be more careful, but they often are not). The remaining applicants get a second level of scrutinizing.

At this level I’m looking at availability (our application has a place for them to list what days/hours they can work). Anyone with limited availability that doesn’t fit my needs gets tossed.

I’m also looking at their work history. Not so much for experience, but for the other signs it shows such as…

  • Loyalty – did they work at one place for a long time or bounce around from job to job?
  • Work Environment – do they prefer working in office settings, factory/warehouse or in front of the general public? With kids? With seniors? In a team setting or by themselves? These are more important to me than what they did. I need people comfortable working in front of the general public.
  • Gaps in Employment – what did they do during those gaps? Did they leave on their own accord? Did they leave for another opportunity?
  • Reasons for Leaving – I actually had an applicant who listed for all four previous jobs her reason for leaving as “had problems with the boss”. Sorry, honey, the bosses weren’t the problems.

Finally, I take the pile of potentials left and do a quick background check via the Internet, looking at the free public records available through our District Court and State of Michigan Offender Tracking Information System (OTIS). You’ll be surprised how easy it is to find all kinds of information on your potentials. This time around I eliminated three applicants because of their court records – problems I just didn’t want to bring around here.

The goal of all these steps is to eliminate as many applicants as possible so as not to waste any unnecessary time interviewing applicants you won’t want. Your time is precious, so the interview should be only for people with the greatest potential.

Out of 79 applications, 65 received letters saying…

Thank you for applying to the Toy House. We have received many qualified applicants but have only limited space available to hire new employees and do not have a position available for you at this time.

We will keep your application on file for one year should our needs change in the future.

Once again, thank you for applying and good luck in your employment search.

Fourteen lucky people got scheduled for interviews.

In Part 4 I’ll tell you how the interviews went.

-Phil

I’m Hiring Part 2 – Identifying the Right Traits

Facebook & Email Newsletter ads sent.

Radio ad running.

Applications coming in.

Now for Part 2…

My goal is to find genuinely helpful people. The application/resume only gives me hints at this. The kinds of jobs they held before tell me a little. The organizations they’ve joined tell me a little more. But I need to find out in a short period of time (the interview) if they have the traits I want.

How do I do that?

As we speak I’m working on interview questions to help me identify these traits. I posted my needs in an online group where I belong and received this list of questions from a friend who also does a lot of hiring…

  1. What are you looking to do next, and why?
  2. What type of people (team) do you want to be with and why?
  3. What would you like to learn?
  4. What are you an expert on? What are you the best at?
  5. What is the worst decision you ever made?
  6. Describe your most remarkable project/achievement.
  7. Leadership- How did you move your last organization forward? What did you do to move those around you forward?
  8. Imagine you had your own business…what would you do to improve service, improve morale, improve the bottom line, etc.?
  9. Describe an interesting problem and how you solved it.
  10. Describe a problem you foresaw, and how you helped avoid it.

Good questions, but how do you get good answers? How can I make it comfortable enough for the interviewee that she gives me honest answers?

One suggestion I received was to walk around the store with the person, a less formal setting than the office and desk approach.

Another was to put all the applicants together at once and have them talk about their experience and traits together, that you’ll see their true character show up in a group setting like this. You’ll see the ultra-competitive, the back-stabbers, the talkers, the listeners, the shy, the loud.

Another was to put them right on the job as part of the interview. See how they do cold and you’ll have an idea if they have the traits you want.

And one more intriguing idea is to ask each applicant to bring in one object that truly reflects who they are, and be prepared to explain why. Their dedication to this task will tell me a lot about their dedication to the job, not to mention a lot about who they are.

I’m leaning towards the first and last approaches, but would love to hear your thoughts…

How would you make it so that interviewees give honest and forthcoming answers that are not canned?

-Phil

I’m Hiring, Part 1 – Attracting the Right People

I need 2 or 3, or maybe 4 more part-timers to round out my staff and keep customer service levels at our high standard.

Here’s how I’m going about finding them.

First, I announced it on our Facebook Page and Email Newsletter. Here is what I said…

Do you like to interact with adults and kids alike? Are you self-motivated, dependable and reliable? Do you get satisfaction from helping others? Do you love to learn and grow personally?

You might be just who we’re looking for. As our business continues to stay strong, we need more friendly, helpful people to make our customers smile.

Stop in and fill out an application by April 10th. We’re looking for some part-time helpers to make you smile.

By doing it in those locations I’m reaching out to people who already know and love our store, and also know the committment to customer service we expect.

Next, I’ll be running a radio ad that says the following…

It’s not easy joining the Toy House Team. Oh, the application is standard, but your handwriting better be good and the info complete and accurate. And if you’re lucky enough to get an interview, you gotta prove that you’re friendly, helpful, and motivated. Training? Our expectations are tough, but the customers’ are even tougher. When you make it, though, you’ll be part of the best retail team in town. So if you have what it takes, stop by Toy House in downtown Jackson. We’re looking for people who make you smile.

You’ll notice something in both of those ads. Never once did I mention retail experience as a prerequisite for employment. But I did mention some traits I DO want. Words like “friendly”, “helpful”, “self-motivated”, “dependable”, “reliable”, “love to learn” fill out my ads.

The purpose is to speak to the people who might have the traits I want and also keep away some of the people who read those descriptions and say, “That’s just not me.”

The best applicants will put on their resumes and applications some sort of proof that they have those characteristics. And if they don’t it’s either because they didn’t hear/see my ads (which, of course, I’ll ask them) or they didn’t care.

Oh yeah, caring is one of those words, too. If they don’t care to speak to my needs in the application, they won’t care to speak to my customers’ needs on the job.

When you do your next round of hiring, spell out the traits you most want in your new employees directly in the ad. You’ll attract more people with those traits and fewer people without them.

Sir Walter Raleigh said it best, “The employer generally gets the employee he deserves.”

-Phil

A New Twist on Training New Employees

I just hired seven new employees for the store. Now comes the fun part – training.

My standards are high. My customers’ standards are even higher. They have an expectation about our store that may seem unfair in these days of self-serve retail. They expect to be waited upon. They expect to have their questions answered quickly, correctly and with good cheer. They expect the staff to be friendly, knowledgeable and efficient. They expect us to have what they want, get it through the checkout quick, giftwrap it for free and have them on their way before their child has time to even think about a meltdown.

Oh yeah, and they want to have FUN while doing it.

In short, my customers are expecting the world, and I am planning on giving it.

The seven new employees had two things in common – a desire to help others and a strong work ethic. Those were the characteristics I required in this round of hiring. Now comes the task of teaching them about the toys, about our services, about our policies, about our cash registers, about our philosophy. There is a lot to learn. More than I can remember. More than I have time to teach.

I did two things you can copy for your business when you have to hire & train new employees.

First, I created a checklist of all the skills the new employees need to learn. I broke it down into main items and subcategories to make sure nothing was overlooked. Simple things like closing procedures or bagging toys were on the list along with educational material like How Toys Teach, and Phil’s Top Ten Toys. Cash register procedures, time clock procedures, delivery policies and every other service we offer is on the list.

And next to each item on the list is a blank line.

The second thing I did was empower my current staff to train the newbies on all of these procedures. The only caveat is that the employee who does the training has to put her initials on the newbie’s checklist next to that item.

There are three immediate benefits of doing training this way.

  1. The regular staff gets a sense of responsibility in training the new hires. They feel more empowered which leads to even more responsibility.
  2. Everyone is accountable for how well the training is accomplished. If your initials are on the checklist, you better have taught them well. Knowing that you’ll be evaluated, too, has the regulars honing their own skills in the process.
  3. We’re building camaraderie right from the start. The new staff are interacting more with the old staff and getting to know them quicker than if they were just working along side each other.

Sure, I’m still involved in the training. Some of my involvement is direct teaching the skills I want to teach, but most is just overseeing the process and evaluating the new employees’ skills as they learn. Best of all, I get to see who of the regulars has the ability to teach and who needs more work on their own skills.

All in all, through this process everyone is improving their abilities to give the customers the kind of service they expect. And I’m getting seven new smiling faces ready for the frontlines this holiday season.

-Phil

Being a Successful Retailer

If you’ve been following this blog regularly, you probably know everything I’m going to say here. Some of it is in my Bio, and some is on my new website www.PhilsForum.com.

For those who are just starting to follow, I’d like to give you a little background about who I am and what I want to accomplish with this blog.

I am a retailer. I run a toy store so I know a lot about seasonal business. I also sell baby products so I know a lot about working on deadlines (nine months might seem like a long time, but it sneaks up on a lot of couples).

And most people consider my business to be quite successful. We were named by George Whalin as one of the 25 Best Independent Stores in America. So we must be doing something right.

In a couple weeks I’m going to tell the city of Jackson how to be successful in a market with 15% unemployment, a shrinking blue-collar workforce, and a struggling government & economy.

I can sum it up in two words – Keep Learning.

When I realized that our advertising wasn’t working, I took classes, read books and studied until I fully understood branding and how ads work. I give a lot of credit to Roy H. Williams, aka The Wizard of Ads for what I learned.

When I realized that I was lousy at hiring, I evaluated the problem until I understood where I went wrong and developed a system to improve the quality of people I was bringing in. (I’m publishing a book about it later this fall.)

When I took over 50% of the buying responsibilities for the largest selection of toys under one roof, I studied open-to-buy systems and adapted them to fit our situation and needs.

As an Independent Retailer, there are always fires to put out, always challenges to face, always new obstacles to overcome. I believe the successful businesses are the ones who are always learning, always expanding their knowledge & understanding of four key areas:

  • Customer Service
  • Inventory Control/Merchandising
  • Financials
  • Advertising/Marketing

I have found that the more I study, the more prepared I am to meet the new challenges and turn them into opportunities. As my high school swim coach used to always say, Luck is when Preparation meets Opportunity.

How do I do it? I devour business books. I am reading Trust Agents by Chris Brogan & Julien Smith right now. It will be the 12th non-fiction book I’ve read this year. One of my favorite books was Seth Godin’s Tribes. It’s no wonder that I follow both Seth’s and Chris’s blogs.

Which brings me to the goal of this blog… I want to share with you what I’ve been learning so that we all can be successful.

Your feedback is welcome. The more you comment and tell me what’s on your mind, the more I can tweak this to give you what you need. If there are topics you’d like to see addressed, let me know. If there ideas you want to share, by all means share them.

We’re in this together. At least that’s my way of thinking.

Your thoughts?

-Phil

Uncover the Diamonds in Your Hiring Process By Eliminating the Biggest Hiring Mistake

You’ve hired and fired enough people to know what makes a good employee and what doesn’t. Yet, your track record of finding diamonds in the rough doesn’t seem to change. I know. I’ve been there. It took me years to learn this logical approach, but now I have a proven process that eliminates the biggest mistake in hiring and helps me find diamonds at every turn.

The biggest mistake we make in the hiring process is to look for experience instead of character traits.

There is a simple process for identifying the right raw ingredients for the job.

  • Make a Master List of all the traits of the perfect candidate.
  • Separate the Master List into two columns – Teachable and Non-Teachable traits.
  • Develop interview questions to identify the Non-Teachable traits.

If you are looking for a top notch salesperson, you need someone who is friendly, approachable, outgoing, honest, caring, and empathetic. Yet, what is the first thing you usually check? Sales Experience.

All the experience in the world will not make someone more caring, approachable, or empathetic. Years and years on the sales floor does not equate to honesty or friendliness. Experience cannot teach the non-teachable traits.

Just as the potter can’t make fine China with coarse clay, you can’t have a great employee if you don’t start with the right raw ingredients. Every job has certain skills or traits necessary for success. Many of these traits are teachable. Some are not.

Three simple logical steps. Follow them in your hiring process and your hiring will improve immediately. You will more quickly identify the people who already possess the innate skills needed to do the job. If they have all the Non-Teachable traits and Experience, all the better. But without the right traits first, they’ll never shine under pressure.

You need coal to make a diamond. You need certain non-teachable traits to make a diamond employee. Experience does not guarantee success. The candidate who possesses the non-teachable traits from your master list has the best chance to be successful for your business. And once you know this, you’ll be finding diamonds at every turn.

And as for those teachable traits in the other column? There is your training program, your chance to polish those diamonds to make them shine. Here’s a form to use for separating the traits for each job.

It’s simple, it’s easy, and the method is free for anyone to use. If you agree, send this to everyone you know who hires and fires.

If you don’t agree, leave a comment. I’d love to hear your take on the matter.

-Phil