This book is a detailed "how to" book on finding the career minded GREAT employees you need to move your organization forward in a positive manner. Included in the book are samples of --A hiring process manual --An employee policy manual --Sample job descriptions Using the ideas in this book may just save you a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. No theory here, just proven ideas that have WORKED.

FINDING, TRAINING, AND KEEPING GREAT SERVICE EMPLOYEES 101

By Richard D. Ollek

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2009 Richard D. Ollek, CBSE
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4389-8986-0

Contents

DEDICATED TO.......................................................vACKNOWLEDGMENTS....................................................ixDISCLAIMER.........................................................xiINTRODUCTION.......................................................xiiiPART 1CHAPTER 1 IT'S A JUNGLE OUT THERE!...............................1CHAPTER 2 NEWSPAPER ADS..........................................7CHAPTER 3 CAREER FAIRS...........................................13CHAPTER 4 RECRUITING NEIGHBORHOODS...............................23CHAPTER 5 ON LINE RECRUITING.....................................31CHAPTER 6 MANAGING THE RECRUITING PROCESS........................33CHAPTER 7 AND YOUR FACILITES LOOK LIKE?..........................37CHAPTER 8 TIME FOR THE INTERVIEW.................................41CHAPTER 9 A PLAN OF ACTION.......................................49PART 2CHAPTER 10 THE FIRST STEP.........................................55CHAPTER 11 THE ORIENTATION PROCESS................................63CHAPTER 12 THE IMPORTANCE OF TRAINING.............................151CHAPTER 13 SO HOW DO WE TRAIN?....................................161CHAPTER 14 EFFECTIVE LEARNING AND REMEMBERING.....................169CHAPTER 15 OTHER KEEPING IDEAS THAT WORK..........................177CHAPTER 16 YOUR PLAN OF ACTION....................................181CHAPTER 17 SAMPLE JOB DESCRIPTIONS................................189

Chapter One

IT'S A JUNGLE OUT THERE!

At the time of the writing of this book (early 2009), the United States is officially, according to the government, in a recession. Some economists say a depression. That means we will have hundreds of people coming in our doors wanting work, right? Maybe, maybe not. Well, at least they come in wanting a paycheck.

When we talk about finding GREAT service employees who are we really competing against to improve our organization and fill the open positions?

For purposes of this book, when we discuss service employees we are identifying employees that fall in the following types of service industries:

* Fast food

* Convenience and retail store clerks

* Janitorial workers

* Hospitality service employees

As I drive around the city I see signs in fast food restaurants saying "help wanted" and the newspaper still runs ads for contract cleaning companies looking for employees.

My point is this ... No matter what the unemployment rate is or how many people say they are looking for work, it appears that those of us in service related industries are always in need of GREAT employees.

I have talked with many people that have said that when there is a recession they can get all the people they need. In my opinion, that is all the more reason to have a systematic process of finding GREAT people so that your organization is able to attract the best of all of those GREAT people that are supposedly now available. Remember, it is a jungle out there and whether there are large quantities of GREAT people available or very few, those companies with an organized, systematic method of finding and keeping GREAT employees are the ones that prosper in good times and in bad.

After spending over 40 years in the Building Service Contracting industry performing primarily janitorial and related services and in spending large amounts of time with contractors throughout the country, there is one very basic lesson I have learned-you are not competing against other companies doing your kind of service, you are competing against other companies in the service industry. Let me ask you, if the average college age student comes home saying he or she has been offered a position working in fast food or cleaning toilets, which position do you think their parents are going to suggest they take? Right.

So, if you are a Building Service Contractor you need to have a professional, systematic process of convincing people that you have great careers available. Maybe an advantage you have is steady hours rather than split shifts, etc. Those of you in other service related industries, what advantage do you provide that makes your industry an attractive, long term career?

It is easy to get complacent in an economy when unemployment numbers are running at a high level. We tend to think as employers that we are in the driver's seat but I suggest to you that the economy ALWAYS makes a comeback, sometimes just faster than other times. And when it does, those computer technicians and administrative professionals you hired to do the service work you are in will probably go back to their other careers UNLESS-you have done the things necessary to keep them excited about staying in your industry.

We want to assist you through this book to find the right people and then do the things that will keep as many of them as possible in the future.

Before we jump into some creative ways to find people, it is important that we understand some very important keys in being successful in this process.

"HIRING VS. RECRUITING"

It is common in service industries such as janitorial or food service to look at the positions as ones that will have high turnover thinking "the employee will leave anyway as soon as they find something better so why spend a lot of time in the interview and detailed training program". If that is your attitude, they will leave as soon as they can because they will sense that in the interview.

It is important for us to change the way WE view the positions we have available. I suggest to you that it is time you begin viewing the industry you are in and the positions you have as careers, not jobs. But, you may be saying, I am only hiring part time employees at a low wage and they are just looking for extra money. Let me ask you, how do you think we will ever get people to think of our industry as a career choice if we are not showing them the opportunities that exist? How you treat them now may determine if they want to eventually pursue the industry full time. How a prospective or current employee views their job will often mirror the way YOU view their job. It is important that you begin to RECRUIT employees instead of HIRING employees-the difference?

THE DEFINITION OF HIRING IS THE ATTEMPT TO FILL VACANCIES BY WHATEVER MEANS POSSIBLE. (REACTIVE)

When you are hiring people you are reacting to the immediate needs of the day. A supervisor comes to you and says, "I need someone to start tonight in the south end location beginning at 6 PM and work till midnight. They will need to know how to dump trash and run a vacuum cleaner". So what do you do?

You begin to go through that stack of applications you have over on the corner of the desk. "Okay, I'll call the first three on the top of the stack. That seems to be a good random way of picking someone. I don't remember them but I kept their application so they must be good".

And of course the first two don't answer but by golly the third one does and you offer the job to them by going through a tough screening process. "Have you ever dumped trash?" you ask. The answer comes back, "Why yes, my wife has me take it to the curb every Thursday morning". "Great, have you ever run a vacuum cleaner?" "I vacuum the carpets every Saturday morning". "Sounds perfect, can you meet your supervisor here at our office at 5:30 this evening?"

At 5:30 they arrive at your office not looking like the best recruit you have ever seen. They sure sounded better over the phone. Reminds me of a movie I saw where the person said upon meeting someone for the first time, "You sounded taller on the phone". You're not sure they are even breathing. You take them over to the mirror you have in the waiting room and ask them to breathe on it. They do but it doesn't fog up. So you breathe on it, see a little fog, and say, "Close enough".

Oh, and you didn't tell them the job was 25 miles from their home and after the second night they realize their 12 miles per gallon older model car is using 4 gallons of gas every night to get to and from work. They let you know what you can do with your job. Or maybe they don't let you know, you just find out when you go check on the work and find no one has been there.

Exaggeration? Maybe, but if you think back I will venture a guess that you have hired someone in a similar manor in the past. Whatever segment of the service industry you are in, I bet you can relate a similar story.

You see, when all you are doing is trying to hire to fill slots, you are getting whomever you can get because all you are ever doing is reacting to the current situation.

Now lets move on to recruiting and how it differs from hiring.

THE DEFINITION OF RECRUITING IS THE SYSTEMATIC PROCESS OF LOCATING, SCREENING, HIRING AND TRAINING POTENTIAL QUALITY, GREAT EMPLOYEES.

You see, hiring is only one step in the recruiting process. Unless you do all the steps mentioned above in a professional, systematic way, you will forever be in a panic, high turnover, never ending cycle of frustration.

I suggest that everyone in your organization should be working toward recruiting and not just hiring. A company that I am very familiar with began the process of recruiting and implementing the processes in this part of the book as well as part 2 and the result of the commitment was reducing their turnover to 25% of the national average for the cleaning industry. It takes a commitment and not a token memo from the front office.

So, in the next chapter let's look at some of the ways we can effectively recruit prospects that can become GREAT employees.

Thought for the day: When I first got married I would go skinny dipping. Now that I have gained considerable weight, I go chunky dunkin'.

- Dick Ollek

Chapter Two

NEWSPAPER ADS

Seeing the title of this chapter you probably said, "I've tried newspaper ads, they are expensive and most of the time don't work". Just humor me a bit while I give you some examples of ads that did work for me and why I think they worked. Let's start with one of my favorites:

25 IMMEDIATE OPENINGS

We are recruiting SUPERVISORS & GENERAL CLEANERS. Full time and part time positions available. Career opportunities available to those with a desire to succeed. Apply at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx anytime between 10 am and 7pm. Also open on Saturday from 9 am to 1 pm. Pre-employment drug screen required.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX

EOE/M-F

Whenever we utilized the newspaper to recruit, this ad or one similar was always used. Why was it successful you ask? I am glad you asked. Here is why I think this type of ad worked.

You will notice we said we had multiple IMMEDIATE openings.

In all my years of recruiting relatively lower wage service employees, I found many of them suffered from low self esteem. Their confidence is shattered. They've been turned down for credit or been told by well meaning relatives and friends that they can't do anything really productive and are stuck where they are. As a result, they never really make an effort in a competitive environment because they "just know" they will fail. But tell them there are multiple openings such as 25 and they believe they can get one out of 25. By listing several openings you will get people to apply that otherwise feel too insecure to walk in your door.

Now for those of you who may be thinking I only have 5 openings, etc. let me relay a true story that happened to me a few years ago.

I was visiting one of my branch offices and in talking with my manager about his accomplishments and disappointments he indicated to me his frustration with the Human Resources manager who just didn't seem to be able to keep up with the needs of the branches growth and normal turnover. He asked if I might have a visit with HR in my usual nice demeanor.

In talking with the Human Resource manager, I found he was relying almost exclusively on one agency to fill the open slots and they were not responding to his needs as fast as he (or my manager) would like. I then asked him to run an ad indicating we have 20 immediate openings. His reply? "But Dick, that would be telling a lie. We only have 13 openings". About that time the Branch Manager came walking by the office and I asked him to step in a moment. My question? "I know you have only 13 openings today but if we ran an ad that said 20 immediate openings, do you have 7 people you would like to replace"? His answer was a quick, "I have 70 people I would like to replace". Now that answer was probably given out of frustration but the point I am making is that even if you run an ad for more openings than you have that day, you will need additional people eventually and part of recruiting is having a backlog of people that you can always call for additional growth and turnover. Frankly, you probably have some current employees you would like to replace right now. Do you?

In the chapter on job fairs I will relay another story that amplifies the importance of putting immediate openings as the heading to your ad.

Another reason the ad worked so well is that we took applications at times of the day that many of our competitors didn't. Look at the ad again and you will see we were open until 7 PM in the evening and on Saturday morning. Now, what difference does that make?

If you are only open from 8 to 5 you are asking a prospective employee to take off from their regular job to come apply for your positions. To do this they will need to take a day off or lie about being sick, etc. in order to do so. If they are unemployed it won't make a difference but let's try to recruit the best GREAT people we can and make it easy for them to apply. By being open until 7 PM you allow them to work their regular job and then apply on their way home. By being open on Saturday even enhances your chances at getting great applicants. We were also open many times on Sunday afternoon by wording the ad something like "out looking for a new home? Trying to figure out how you can make the additional payment for just the house you want? Go to the open house, then come by our office and discuss the part time evening positions we have that will give you the extra money you will need".

Our response to Sunday open house ads was great. We had fewer numbers come in the door but the quality of applicants was such that we could employ nearly all of them.

Not to belabor the point on being open late and on weekends but let me remind you, especially if you are in an industry like janitorial service that performs most of its work at night, that you are asking people to work at night so shouldn't you be available to interview them during the hours you want them to work? It just never made sense to me that we wanted our employees to work from 6 PM to 2 AM but we would only interview them between 8 AM and 5 PM. Strange.

While I am on the subject of hours to interview, another pet peeve is when companies will only interview during certain hours of the day like 9-l1 AM or 2-4 PM. You are in need of quality GREAT employees but then make it difficult for them to obtain an interview. Remember, the Human Resource department has as its customer the applicants and employees of the company and the same rules and policies that we employ for other customers should apply here-SATISFY THE CUSTOMER. You don't do that by limiting the time you will talk with them.

Let's look at another ad that worked very effectively:

BUSINESS IS BOOMING

We have excellent opportunities for cleaning technicians and seasoned supervisors on a P/T and F/T schedule.

Hours are flexible, growth is realistic, training is provided, and wages and benefits are very competitive. Discuss a future with a proven leader in the Building Services Industry.

Our interview hours for these positions are 8 AM to 8 PM, Monday-Friday and 9 AM -1 PM on Saturday. Pre-employment drug screen required.

ABC COMPANY 1234 GREAT STREET NICE TOWN, USA E0E/M/F

In addition to the key points already mentioned, you will notice the heading of the ad-BUSINESS IS BOOMING. Why head up the ad like this? A couple of reasons:

First, most people like to work for a company that is doing well. There is a greater feeling of security if you know the company is doing well and believe me, in this day and age, with many long time, big name companies failing almost daily, that is a major positive advantage.

Second, it keeps your competitors wondering what you are up to. They begin to wonder if you just secured one of their major customers and they start to ask their staff, "Are we in trouble anywhere? I see ABC company is advertising for people because 'business is booming'".

Now really want to confuse them? Run an ad that says business is booming and we need 20 additional people. It's fun.

Occasionally you will have that position that requires a very special person but with the regulations today you can't say things like, "We want only 18 year olds, or we want only retired people or we want only housewives that know good cleaning".

(Continues...)

Excerpted from FINDING, TRAINING, AND KEEPING GREAT SERVICE EMPLOYEES 101by Richard D. Ollek Copyright © 2009 by Richard D. Ollek, CBSE. Excerpted by permission.
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