Bosses need time, courage to take hiring chances
Job advice from Diane Stafford and Marie G. McIntyre
A previous boss and mentor passed away recently, and I’ve been reading tributes by his former employees and students.
We should all be so fortunate to leave a trail of people for whom we made a positive career difference.
What jumped out in the remembrances was that he hired people — and put faith in people — who probably shouldn’t have been hired, at least not according to qualification metrics that might have been posted for the job.
But he was a good interviewer. He saw character. He saw potential. He took chances where others might not have.
Except in small businesses, the opportunity to do this kind of faceto-face, one-on-one job interviewing with a supervisor is nearly a lost art.
In larger organizations, a computer scanner trolls through resumés looking for keywords that match posted job descriptions. Or someone in the human resource department pages through applications, looking for people who appear to fit a department’s needs.
As I hear often from job hunters: Words on a page, even when artfully advised by career counsellors, can’t do justice to a candidate’s ability to fill a job. If job history, education or age doesn’t appear to match the expected credentials, candidates don’t get a chance to present themselves in person.
Sometimes, front-line interviewers don’t have insight into the skills or nuances of the job, but a good interviewer lives in the space.
It’s a numbers game, of course. Hundreds of applicants can’t be screened in person. Downsized organizations can’t commit too much time to interviewing dozens for a single spot. They use analytics to zero in on the two or three most promising candidates.
But the tributes I’ve read show that outstanding workers can’t always be recognized by resumé scans, or telephone interviews, or cursory group interviews designed to cull the herd. It takes a good interviewer to see an perfect “fit.”
Sometimes that fit comes from surprising directions. And that takes courage from the interviewer. Without courage, diverse hires wouldn’t happen, at least not in organizations that feel more comfortable when everyone thinks or looks alike or comes from expected backgrounds.
To be courageous interviewers, supervisors have to be confident in their own jobs. They have to defend choices that go against conventional wisdom.
Equally important, they have to stand available to be a mentor, whether their hires are trail-blazing wonders or potential mistakes. Supervising interviewers need to own their decisions.
That ownership, that confidence in his hires, also came through in the tributes to a man who followed people’s careers for decades and shared encouragement or criticism in necessary doses. He wasn’t a softy. He was brutally direct.
Technology, organization size, short-tenured jobs — these all conspire against such long-term work relationships. One can imagine the talent that’s being missed.
•Diane Stafford, The Kansas City Star
Workers wonder about boss’s smoke breaks
Q: My supervisor recently got very angry when a few employees lined up at the time clock shortly before quitting time. She said we must keep working every minute until the end of our shift. However, her concern for productivity seems hypocritical, as she regularly wastes time taking smoke breaks.
Twice a day, our supervisor and department manager go outside and spend 15 minutes smoking and chatting. One of our co-workers occasionally joins them, and they never complain about his missing work. How can we protest this unfair company policy?
A: Smoke breaks have been a point of contention for years. Because non-smoking employees understandably resent others having free time to indulge a bad habit, many companies have eliminated this special privilege. In terms of policy change, therefore, the trend is in your favour.
At the moment, your group actually appears more upset about management than about smoking. But since complaining about your bosses could be unproductive and risky, focusing on the break policy is a smarter move. To increase your leverage, get some irritated non-smokers from other departments to join the cause.
Next, your group must decide where to take this complaint. Since personnel policies typically originate in human resources, the HR manager would seem to be the logical choice. Instead of bringing up time clock issues or supervisory unfairness, explain how smoke breaks reduce productivity and are resented by non-smokers.
Since your supervisor and her boss may not appreciate this attempt to revoke their smoking privileges, ask the HR manager to keep identities confidential. And don’t expect immediate results. Policy changes seldom happen overnight, but at least you will have started the conversation.
Q: Several months ago, I accepted a job that requires weekly travel. I was expected to cover the central U.S. from our headquarters in Texas, which worked out well. Recently, however, my territory was expanded to include half the country, so I now have three-hour flights to the East Coast.
To reduce my travel time, I asked the company to pay for my relocation to North Carolina, where my family is from. My manager says human resources denied this request. I suspect that he told them I wanted to move for family reasons. Should I clarify this with HR, or just leave it alone?
A: The glaring omission in your story is any description of how this move would benefit your company. On the face of it, covering “half the country” from North Carolina would seem to be no more convenient than doing so from Texas, so any savings of money or time are not immediately apparent. If HR reached the same conclusion, then your motivation may have indeed appeared to be personal.
If you wish to find out why your request was denied, by all means ask the HR manager. But before initiating that conversation, prepare a business case showing how the move to North Carolina will either reduce travel costs or increase your productivity. If this proves to be difficult, however, then you should definitely drop the subject.
•Marie G. McIntyre, Tribune News Service