RECRUITERS RETHINK ONLINE PLAYBOOK

As recruiters wade cautiously back into hiring mode, they're throwing out their old playbooks. Rather than sift through mounds of online applications, they are going out to hunt for candidates themselves.

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Bloomberg News

Sodexo's U.S. unit has cut job posts on third-party sites since the recession started. Above, its Paris offices.

Many plan to scale back their use of online job boards, which they say generate mostly unqualified leads, and hunt for candidates with a particular expertise on places like LinkedIn Corp.'s professional networking site before they post an opening. As the market gets more competitive again, they are hiring recruiters with expertise in headhunting and networking, rather than those with experience processing paperwork.

Inundated by online applicants, McLean, Va.-based government contractor Science Applications International Corp. plans to cut the number of job boards it uses in the coming fiscal year to six from 15 or so, says company vice president Kara Yarnot.

SAIC has asked its 125 U.S. recruiters to find candidates for analyst, engineering, and other jobs on professional social networks instead.

"It's almost a throwback to the old, dial-for-dollars method of recruiting," says Ms. Yarnot. "We need to reach candidates earlier, before they're being pursued by competitors."

About 24% of companies plan to decrease their usage of third-party employment websites and job boards this year, according to a December survey from the Corporate Executive Board Co., a business consulting firm. Meanwhile, nearly 80% of respondents said they plan to increase their use of job-board alternative methods this year, such as employee referrals and other websites like Facebook Inc. or LinkedIn.

Food services company Sodexo USA, owned by Paris-based Sodexo SA, slashed the number of jobs it posts to third-party job boards by more than half since the recession started, says vice president of talent acquisition Arie Ball. The number of applications to some executive

openings at Sodexo rose more than 50% to 300 since the downturn started, Ms. Ball says, but the increase brought many unqualified candidates.

"Recruiters had to put in all this extra time to read applications but we didn't get benefit from it," she says. Now, the company is hiring different types of recruiters who specialize in headhunting, including finding candidates to poach from competitors, rather than those who are good at processing and filtering applications.

Companies are adapting their plans as they start hiring again after the downturn. Between November 2009 and November 2010, the total number of job openings rose 32%, according to the Labor Department.

Job seekers who were reluctant to leave their existing jobs—as well as unemployed workers sitting on the sidelines—have begun casting about for opportunities, too. Between December 2009 and December 2010, recruiters saw a 17% increase in applications per opening, according to the Corporate Executive Board.

The trend has in many ways been a boon for job boards, which say they haven't noticed any impact from some companies' pullback. But some of the largest sites acknowledge that the new environment means they must do more to keep customers happy.

In the coming months, Monster Worldwide Inc. plans to roll out technology that ranks candidates based on how well their applications fit requirements set by the recruiter, says chief global marketing officer Ted Gilvar. The product has been available to some customers since late last year.

Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group Inc. remains concerned that relying too much on job boards could be bad for business.

Melissa Mounce, the company's senior vice president of corporate talent acquisition, says the company became concerned that its slow response time to applications was hurting its retail bank's brand. "Someone who applies for a bank-teller position might also be a customer or potential customer, and we were letting those applications fall into a black hole," she says.

PNC has reduced its overall spending on general job boards, such as Monster and CareerBuilder, but still uses niche boards, like Dice.com for tech professionals, when the need arises. "We used to post everything, but in this environment, you have to think strategically," she says.

Additionally, the company is currently reorganizing its recruiting staff to better handle the tens of thousands of applications it receives in a given month. Instead of using senior recruiters to filter through the company's applicants, lower-level screeners process them first and only hand off the most-qualified. A separate set of recruiters actively searches for more experienced candidates who aren't likely to come in through a job board.

The 5 Biggest Hiring MistakesHiring the right people is critical for any business but especially for a small company with

relatively few employees. Hiring mistakes not only waste time and money, they create a ripple effect that impacts other employees and your business.

Here are five hiring mistakes you absolutely must avoid:

1.  Thinking you can change a leopard’s spots.** All employees typically must follow company rules and guidelines, whether formal or unwritten. Still, some people can’t — or won’t. The outstanding salesman with the incredible track record of generating business and terrorizing admin and support staff won’t immediately play well in your sandbox just because you hired him. The kid who works Dracula hours fueled by Mountain Dew and Cheetos won’t magically transform into a model Mr. 8-to-5. For some people the work itself, and how they perform that work, is what matters most — not the job. Don’t think you can change them.

Instead: Two choices: One, decide you will accept the total package. If you desperately need revenue you might decide to live with the proven sales superstar’s prima donna behavior. Or letting the valuable programmer work nights may be okay even if everyone else works day hours and communication will be less than optimal. But if you’re not willing to accommodate or compromise, pass. There is no middle ground.

2.  Hiring for skills rather than attitude. Skills and knowledge are worthless when not put to use. Experience is useless when not shared with others. The smaller your business the more likely you are to be an expert in your field; transferring those skills to others is relatively easy. But you can’t train enthusiasm, a solid work ethic, and great interpersonal skills — and those traits can matter a lot more than any skills a candidate brings. (According to this Leadership IQ study, only 11% of new hires fail in the first eighteen months due to technical skill deficiencies.)

Instead: If in doubt, always hire for attitude. A candidate who lacks certain hard skills is cause for concern; a candidate who lacks interpersonal skills is waving a giant red flag.

3.  Selling your business. You absolutely need employees who want to work for you. That’s a given. But never try to sell a candidate on your company. Why? 1) Good candidates have done their homework; they know whether your company is a good fit, and 2) You skew the employee/employer relationship from the start. An employee grateful for an opportunity

approaches her first days at work much differently than an employee who feels she’s doing you a favor by joining your team.

Instead: Describe the position, describe your company, answer questions, be factual and forthright, let the candidate make an informed decision… but never sell. The right candidates recognize the right opportunities.

4.  Hiring friends and family. I know: Some successful businesses look like a perpetual family reunion. Still, be careful. Some employees will overstate a family member’s qualifications when making a recommendation. Their heart may be in the right place, but their desire to help out a family member doesn’t always align with your need to hire great employees. Plus friends and family see each other outside of work, too, increasing the chances of interpersonal conflicts. The smaller the company, the greater the potential impact. And one more thing: Two brothers in a five-person business may just wield more effective power than you.

Instead: Either set up an appropriate policy, like “no family members in the same department,” or do an incredibly thorough job of evaluating the candidate. In general establishing and following a policy is the cleanest solution if only because you will never appear to favor one employee’s request to interview a friend over another.

5.  Ignoring intuition. Nothing beats a formal, comprehensive hiring process — except, sometimes, intuition. Always weigh impressions against qualitative considerations. And feel free to run little “tests.” I always took supervisory candidates on an informal tour of our manufacturing areas. Sometimes employees would interrupt to ask a question; I stopped because employees always come first. A candidate who appeared irritated or frustrated by the interruption was a cause for concern. Same with a struggling employee, say one who got behind while stacking boxes. I would naturally pitch in while still talking to the candidate. Most would also pitch in, some self-consciously in an obvious attempt to impress, others naturally and without affect. (It’s easy to tell who automatically helps out and who does so only because you’re watching.)

Instead: Let your experience and intuition inform your hiring decisions. And don’t be afraid to conduct your own tests. A classic is the waiter test: How someone interacts with a waiter (or anyone in a position to serve them) is often a good indication of how they will interact with your employees. You know the intangible qualities you need in employees; determine a few simple ways to see if a candidate has or lacks those qualities.

Bottom Line: If in doubt, cross ‘em out. Everyone makes hiring mistakes, no matter how hard they try. Never put yourself in a position to look back and think, “I knew I shouldn’t have hired him…”

**I stole this expression from a friend. Years ago he and his then-wife entered marriage counseling. At their first session she started listing his faults. After a few bullet points he stopped her and said, “How important are those issues to you?”

“Very,” she replied. “These are all things that absolutely have to change.”

He stood, headed for the door, and said, “Good luck with that. Spots on a leopard, baby. Can’t change ‘em. Ain’t gonna try.”

It should come as no surprise that fifteen years later he’s still single.

Read more: http://www.bnet.com/blog/small-biz-advice/the-5-biggest-hiring-mistakes/2268#ixzz1PWT0Xyly

4 Essential Job Interview Questions to AskMost job candidates feel interview questions can be decoded and hacked, letting them respond to those questions with “perfect” answers.

Guess what: They’re right, especially if you insist on asking terrible job interview

questions.

(Quick aside: Is there really a perfect answer to a silly question like, “What do you feel is your biggest weakness?” I think there is: “If that’s the kind of question you typically ask… I don’t want to work for you.”)

I’ve interviewed over a thousand people for positions ranging from part-time to skilled to executive. While I’ve actively repressed a lot of my experiences, I have learned two things:

1. Candidates I think are the most likely to succeed almost always turn out to be the worst performers, and

2. Asking opinion-based questions is a complete waste of time. Every candidate comes prepared to answer general questions about teamwork, initiative, interpersonal skills, leadership, etc.

Interviewing is an imprecise process, but you can improve your ability to evaluate candidates by asking interview questions that elicit facts instead of opinions.

Why? I can never rely on what you claim you will do, but I can learn a lot from what you have already done. The past is a fairly reliable indication of the future where employee behavior and attitude is concerned.

How do you get to the facts? You have to ask. Ask an initial question, then put on your 60 Minutes investigative hat and follow up: Fully understand the situation described, determine exactly what the candidate did (and did not do), and find out how things turned out.

Follow-up questions don’t need to be complicated: “Really?” “Wow - what did he do?” “What did she say?” “What happened next?” “How did that go over?” All you have to do is keep the conversation going. Remember, an interview is really just a conversation.

With that in mind, here are four of my favorite behavioral interview questions:

1.  “Tell me about the last time a customer or coworker got mad at you.”

Intent: Evaluate the candidate’s interpersonal skills and ability to deal with conflict.

Remember, make sure you find out why the customer or coworker was mad, what the interviewee did in response, and how the situation turned out both in the short- and long-term.

Red flag: The interviewee pushes all the blame — and responsibility for rectifying the situation — on the other person.

Good: The interviewee focuses on how they addressed and fixed the problem, not on who was to blame.

Great: The interviewee admits they caused the other person to be upset, took responsibility, and worked to make a bad situation better. That’s the trifecta of answers: You are willing to admit when you are wrong, you take responsibility for fixing your mistakes, and you learn from experience. (Remember, every mistake is just training in disguise as long as the same mistake isn’t repeated over and over again, of course.)

2.  “Tell me about the toughest decision you had to make in the last six months.”

Intent: Evaluate the candidate’s ability to reason, problem solving skills, judgment, and sometimes even willingness to take intelligent risks.

Red flag: No answer. Everyone makes tough decisions regardless of their position. My daughter works part-time as a server at a local restaurant and makes difficult decisions every night, like the best way to deal with a regular customer whose behavior constitutes borderline harassment.

Good: Made a difficult analytical or reasoning-based decision. For example, wading through reams of data to determine the best solution to a problem.

Great: Made a difficult interpersonal decision, or better yet a difficult data-driven decision that included interpersonal considerations and ramifications. Making decisions based on data is essential, but almost every decision has an impact on people as well. The best candidates naturally weigh all sides of an issue, not just the business or human side exclusively.

3.  “Tell me about a time you knew you were right… but you still had to follow directions or guidelines.”

Intent: Evaluate the candidate’s ability to follow… and possibly to lead.

Red flag: Found a way to circumvent guidelines “… because I know I was right,” or followed the rules but allowed their performance to suffer. (Believe it or not, if you ask enough questions, some people will tell you they were angry or felt stifled and didn’t work hard as a result, especially when they think you empathize with their “plight.”)

Good: Did what needed to be done, especially in a time-critical situation, then found an appropriate time and place to raise issues and work to improve the status quo.

Great: Not only did what needed to be done, but stayed motivated and helped motivate others as well. In a peer setting, an employee who is able to say, “Hey, I’m not sure this makes sense either, but for now let’s just do our best and get it done…” is priceless. In a supervisory setting, good leaders are able to debate and argue behind closed doors and then fully support a decision in public even if they privately disagree with that decision.

4.  “Tell me about the last time your workday ended before you were able to get everything done.”

Intent: Evaluate commitment, ability to prioritize, ability to communicate effectively.

Red flag: “I just do what I can and get the heck out of there. I keep telling my boss I can only do so much but he won’t listen…. “

Good: Stayed a few minutes late to finish a critical task, or prioritized before the end of the workday to ensure critical tasks were completed. You shouldn’t expect heroic efforts every day, but some level of dedication is certainly nice.

Great: Stayed late and/or prioritized… but most importantly communicated early on that deadlines were in jeopardy. Good employees take care of things; great employees take care of things and make sure others are aware of potential problems ahead of time just in case other proactive decisions make sense.

Note: Keep in mind there are a number of good and great answers to this question. “I stayed until midnight to get it done” can sometimes be a great answer, but doing so night after night indicates there are other organizational or productivity issues the employee should raise. (I may sometimes be glad you stayed late, but I will always be glad when help me spot chronic problems or bottlenecks.) Evaluate a candidate’s answers to this question based on your company’s culture and organizational needs.

There are plenty of others questions you can use; these are just my favorites.

Stick to facts-based questions and you quickly get past a candidate’s “interview armor” since few candidates can bluff their way through more than one or two questions. Plus you’ll easily identify potential disconnects between a candidate’s resume and their actual experience, qualifications, and accomplishments.

Best of all you’ll have a much better chance of identifying potentially great employees. An awesome candidates will shine in a fact-based interview.

Read more: http://www.bnet.com/blog/small-biz-advice/4-essential-job-interview-questions-to-ask/2213#ixzz1PWTB9H95

How to Determine What a Job Candidate is Really ThinkingResumes are helpful. Interviews can provide insight. But how do you know what a potential

new hire is really thinking?

You don’t — unless you conduct a stealth tour.

Most interviews include some form of facility tour, even if that just means walking around the office area. Handle the tour correctly and you’ll learn a lot more than you ever imagined about a candidate’s motivations, interests, and fit for your business.

I stumbled on the stealth tour technique by accident when I was in charge of manufacturing. My boss had just finished interviewing a candidate for a management position and was starting the tour when some crisis came up.

I happened to be in the hall. My boss saw me and said, “Jeff, can you show Mark (not his real name) around? He’s interviewing for the CS opening. Great — thanks!”

And off he strode to slay another dragon.

Without trying I had slipped under Mark’s “how important is this person in the organization?” radar, a device many job candidates employ. How?

He didn’t know my role. My boss didn’t introduce me by title, and I didn’t introduce myself that way either because I’m not into titles. When Mark asked I just said, “I work in the manufacturing area,” because that’s what I always said.

He couldn’t tell my role by my clothing. Even though all the other managers dressed “professionally,” I had shifted my personal dress code to jeans and polo shirts: I spent 90% of my time on the floor, liked to get involved, liked to get dirty… okay, who am I kidding. I hate khakis and figured out a way not to wear them. (Plus, when you can perform you aren’t always required to conform.)

So Mark assumed I was just a shop floor guy. Within minutes he made statements and asked questions he never would have had he known my role in the company. I learned:

He was given the option to resign from two previous jobs but it definitely wasn’t his fault; his bosses created the conflict because they constantly “held him back.”

He felt focusing on productivity — both as as a business and personally — stifled creativity. “I’m an ideas person. I’m not hands-on.”

He wanted to know if there were policies against dating employees, especially those that might report to him.

He thought my boss was a jerk.

My boss had planned to hire Mark until I told him about our tour. “Wow. I had no clue. He was great in my interviews,” he said. ” How did you get all that out of him?”

“I didn’t,” I replied. “He just told me.”

Here’s why the stealth tour approach works:

1. Some candidates can put on a great show for the CEO.They don’t try nearly as hard if they perceive someone to be “below” them. Think of it as the waiter test: If you want insight into how a person treats people, take them to lunch. How they interact the waiter is a much better indication of their interpersonal skills than how interact with you.

2. Some candidates want to know the “inside scoop” about the company. (Fair enough, since interviews are a two-way process.) They will often ask the stealth tour guide questions they will never ask you, giving you better insight into their perspectives and agendas.

3. Some otherwise great candidates simply don’t perform well in interviews. A conducted by someone other than you gives them the chance to relax and show their true (often positive) colors.

Next time you have an opening, give it a try. Choose someone in your organization whose opinion you trust. Don’t introduce them by title, and tell them to be relatively vague about their role in the organization if asked.

When you finish your formal interviews, just say to the candidates, “(Jeff) is going to show you around so you can see what we do. Take all the time you need, and I’ll see you when you’re done.”

Sneaky? Not really. The more you know about the candidates the better hiring decision you can make. The stealth tour is just another way to give potential new hires a chance to show they are a great fit for the position and your business. Most will shine. Some will not. Either way, you can make a better decision.

Isn’t that the ultimate goal of every good hiring process?

5 Great Leadership Lessons You Don’t Want to Learn the Hard WayI was asked to speak to a group of MBA students about leadership. I was surprised since:

1. I don’t have an MBA, and

2. The university didn’t want me years ago when I applied for undergrad admission. (I was not only turned down for early admission, my rejection letter also included the dreaded “…and by the way, we’re also not going to accept you during our regular admission phase either but, hey, we certainly wish you all the best in your educational endeavors….”)

I couldn’t dazzle students set to graduate from a top five b-school with my financial wizardry and esoteric analytical skills. (Well, maybe I could, but how boring is that?)

Then I realized most of them would go straight into leadership positions, and some of the best lessons I learned didn’t come from schools or seminars:

1. Information comes and goes, but feelings are forever. Data is important. Explaining the logic and reasoning behind a decision can help create buy-in and commitment. Charts, graphs, tables, results… all useful. All also quickly forgotten. But make an employee feel stupid or embarrass him in front of his peers and he will never forget. Never. Spend twice as much time thinking about how employees will feel than you do about facts and logic. Correcting a data mistake is easy; overcoming the damage you cause to an employee’s self-esteem is impossible.

2. The best ideas are never found in presentations. Formal education is based on lectures, books, PowerPoint presentations, Blackboard tools… generally speaking some form of presentation. Education conditions us to assume valuable information comes from presentations. In the real world the longer and more detailed the presentation the less valuable the information. Great ideas can be captured in one or two sentences, and often your employees have those ideas, not your peers or boss. All you have to do is listen. And your employees will love you for listening, because I guarantee your peers are not.

3. The “volunteer penalty” kills the flow of great ideas. Great ideas tend to come from your best employees, and it’s natural to assign responsibility for carrying out an idea to

the person who came up with the idea. But since your best employees are typically already working at peak capacity, assigning them responsibility for every idea they generate will quickly stop their flow of ideas. (”I better not suggest this… or I’ll have to do it.”) Sometimes the employee will welcome the responsibility (and may be hurt if you don’t give them that responsibility); other times they won’t. How do you know? Ask.

4. Sharing only positives is always a negative. Say you are communicating the reasoning behind a decision. Sharing the positive aspects with your team is easy. Yet employees instinctively look for the negatives, since every silver lining always includes a black cloud that ends up over the rank-and-file. To build trust, share the negatives too. Talk about the downsides. Show you understand the best and the worst that can happen. When you freely discuss potential negatives employees not only respect you more, they often work hard to make sure those potential negatives don’t occur.

5. Data is accurate, but your boss is right. You’re smart. You’re talented. You’re educated. Data analysis is your best friend. Sometimes your data will lead to inescapable conclusions… and your boss will not agree. (Even if you run your own business you still have a boss: Your customers.) Why won’t your boss agree? Sometimes decisions are based on more than analysis, logic, and reasoning because decisions must eventually be carried out by people — people with a wide range of skills and motivations and emotions and agendas. Leadership should be data driven, but great leadership is also messy and sometimes counter-intuitive. If your boss doesn’t agree with you then absolutely ask why, but ask in order to learn and not just to defend your own position. You know things your boss doesn’t know, and he or she knows things you don’t know — at least not yet. You only learn from another person’s experience when you listen.

Why Everyone Should Work in Sales — at Least for a WhileEveryone should work in sales at some point in their career — the earlier the

better.

My first post-college job was with a Fortune 500 company. In terms of workload, we only experienced two conditions: Busy and busier. So I never thought about the task of drumming up sales. Why would I? Work magically appeared.

Many people, especially those who work for large companies, are not exposed to the difficulties and challenges faced by sales teams. But we all should be. Why?

Sales skills are incredibly useful — in every field.

To many people the word “selling” implies manipulating, pressuring, cajoling… all the used car salesman stereotypes. If you think of selling as explaining the logic and benefits of a decision, then every job requires sales skills: Convincing coworkers your idea makes sense, showing your boss how a project will pay off, helping employees understand the benefits of a new process, etc. Communication is critical in any career; you’ll learn more about communication by working in sales than you will almost anywhere else.

Here are more reasons everyone should work in sales, at least for a period of time:

You’ll learn to negotiate. Every job involves negotiating: With peers, with other departments, even with your boss. Salespeople learn to listen, evaluate variables, identify key drivers, overcome objections, and find ways to reach agreement — without burning bridges.

You’ll learn to close. Asking for what you want is difficult for a lot of people. Closing a sale is part art, part science. Getting others to agree with you, and follow your direction, is also part art and part science. If you aspire to a leadership position, you must be able to close. Great salespeople know how to close. Great supervisors and managers do too.

You’ll learn persistence. Salespeople hear the word “no” all the time. Over time you’ll start to see “no” as a challenge, not rejection.

You’ll learn self discipline. If you work for a big company, sometimes you can sleepwalk your way through a day and still get paid. When you work on commission, “If it is to be, it’s up to me,” is your credo. Sales is a great way to permanently connect the mental dots between performance and reward.

You’ll learn to work well with a wide range of people at all levels. Plus, working in sales is the perfect cure for shyness. Learn to step forward with confidence, especially under duress or in a crisis, and you can take on any role in an organization.

If you want to own a business, you’ll always be in sales.Every business is an extension of its owner. Even if they have a sales team, a business owner is always involved in sales. (In many companies the owner still handles the major sales personally — or at the very least is brought into the process to help close the deal.) An entrepreneur who can’t sell faces a major challenge. Gaining sales skills will help you win financing, bring in investors, line up distribution deals, land customers — in the early stages of starting a company, everything involves sales.

Understanding the sales process and how to build customer relationships is incredibly important, regardless of the industry or career you choose. Spending one or two years in a sales role is an investment that will pay dividends forever.

Think of it this way: The more intimidating or scary a position in sales sounds, the more you need to take one. You’ll gain confidence and self-assurance, and the skills you gain will serve you well for the rest of your business — and personal — life.

7 Ways to Ruin a New EmployeeRecently I read an article about welcoming new employees so they get off to a great start. Tips

included welcome baskets, long lunches with key members of the team, and plenty of small talk to make them feel comfortable.

This is not that type of article.

The first few days of employment are critical. New employees are a lot like aircraft carriers: Once the course is set, it takes a lot of time and energy to change direction.

Here are seven ways you can set the wrong course, and in the process ruin a new employee:

1. Welcome them to the family. Strong interpersonal relationships, positive working relationships, friendships… all those come later, if ever. You hire an employee to work, not build relationships. Be polite, courteous, and friendly, but stay focused on the fact the employee was hired to perform a job, and jobs involve work. Let new employees earn their way into the “family” through hard work and achievement.

2. Train holistically. Many training guides say providing context for tasks is critical for new employees. Wrong: Initially a new employee doesn’t need to know how they fit into the overall operation. They need to know how to perform the tasks you hired them to perform. Leave the broader context and holistic approach for later. Besides, evidence shows people best learn to master complex tasks when those tasks are broken down into smaller, more manageable chunks. (Check out The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle.) Teach specific processes and let new employees demonstrate mastery of those processes. Context will wait.

3. Hesitate to give immediate feedback. New employees are tentative, nervous, and mistake-prone. It feels harsh or unfair to correct or criticize, but if you don’t, you lose an opportunity to set the right tone. Unless the job involves creativity, every task should have a right way or best way to be performed. Expect — heck, demand — that new employees do things your way. Bad habits are easily formed and nearly impossible to correct.

4. Fail to set immediate, tangible goals. Successful companies execute. Every new employee should complete at least one concrete, job-related task, even on their first day. Not only do you establish that output is all-important, new employees will go home feeling a sense of personal achievement. Days spent in “orientation” are not only unfulfilling, they make the eventual transition to “work” harder.

5. Leave gaps in the schedule. I know: It’s hard to coordinate new employee orientation and training. Managers, trainers, and mentors get delayed or called away. When that happens, what message do you send? New employees who sit waiting decide you don’t value continual performance. My first day at one new job I was pulled out of orientation and sent to shipping to help load 16 trailers. All hands were on deck, including the CEO, and I immediately learned that job description is important but mission is everything. Keep them busy.

6. Allow new employees to modify processes. Is there a better way to perform just about any task? Absolutely. But new employees should not be allowed to reinvent the wheel until after they fully understand how the present wheel works. Be polite, but ask them to hold their ideas for now.

7. Talk about empowerment. Empowerment is a privilege, not a right. Every employee should earn the right to make broader decisions, take on additional authority, or be given latitude and discretion. Earned empowerment is the only valid empowerment culture.

One final thought: Accountability and responsibility should always precede privilege. Give new employees the tools they need to succeed. Then make them earn greater authority and privilege. You — and eventually they — will be glad you did.

Read more: http://www.bnet.com/blog/small-biz-advice/7-ways-to-ruin-a-new-employee/404#ixzz1PWU7A3xV

8 Things You Should Never Say to EmployeesYour employees constantly watch you. Say the

wrong thing, no matter how unintentionally, and at the very least you send the wrong message. Sometimes what you say can even destroy employee morale.

Here are 8 things a good leader should never say to employees:

1. “I’m in charge, so this is what we’re going to do.” Dealing with different opinions or even open dissent is challenging for any leader and can make you feel defensive and insecure. When that happens you might be tempted to fall back on the golden rule: She who has the gold makes the rules. Don’t. Everyone knows you’re in charge; saying you are instantly destroys any feelings of collaboration, teamwork, and esprit de corps. When you can’t back up a decision with data or logic, possibly that decision isn’t the right decision. Don’t be afraid to back down and be wrong. Employees respect you even more when you admit you make a mistake.

2. “I have a great opportunity for you.” No, you don’t; you just want the employee to agree to take on additional work or the project no one wants. If you say, “Mary, next week I’m assigning you to work on a new project with our best customer,” she immediately knows it’s a great opportunity. If you say, “Mary, I have a great opportunity for you; next week I’m assigning you to sort out the problems in our warehouse,” she knows she just got stuck with a less-than-plum assignment. Any opportunity that really is great requires no preface or setup. Don’t sell.

3. “Man, this has been a long day.  I’ll see you guys.  It’s time for me to get out of here.” No employee wants to feel your pain. From your perspective, running a business can be stressful, draining, and overwhelming. From the employee’s perspective you have it made because you make all the rules. Don’t expect employee empathy; instead talk about how today was challenging and everyone pulled together, or how you really appreciate that employee’s help.

4. “Hey, that’s a great idea — and if we do it this way…” As BNET colleagues Kelly and Marshall Goldsmith note, successful people often try too hard to add value. (Unsuccessful people do too, by the way.) You may be able to improve an employee’s idea and lay out a specific path for implementation, but in the process you kill their enthusiasm. Instead, say, “Hey, that’s a great idea,” then ask questions: How they came up with the idea, the data or reasoning they used, how they think the idea

should be implemented, etc. In the process the employee may identify small tweaks on her own, and if not you can gently guide him in the right direction. The best ideas, from an employee’s point of view, are not your ideas. The best ideas are always their ideas, and rightfully so. Make sure employees’ ideas stay their ideas, and everyone benefits.

5. “Sure, I’ll be happy to talk to your brother about a job.” The smaller the company the less you can afford interpersonal problems, especially those created by cliques and “alliances.” (Doesn’t running a small business sometimes feel like an episode of “Survivor”?) There are certainly exceptions to the rule, but think carefully before you hire an employee’s family member. Blood is always thicker than business.

6. “No.” Actually, “no” can be okay — as long as it is always followed with an explanation. Still, better choices are “I don’t think we can, and here’s why…” or “I would like to, but here’s why we can’t…” or “That sounds like a great idea, but we’ll need to do a couple of things first…” Explain, explain, explain: As a leader, explaining is near the top of your job description.

7. “I can’t wait to go to Cancun next week.” Don’t assume your employees will be inspired by and hope to emulate your success. They won’t. Leave your Porsche in the garage. I’ve consulted for a number of family-run businesses, and in every instance (sometimes when I was on-site less than a day), at least one employee spoke of resenting how “good” the owners have it — at the expense of underpaid employees. Is resenting your success, even if you don’t flaunt it, fair? No. Is it a real issue for employees? Absolutely.

8. “We.” This one is conditional: Use “we” when it fits, but never use the royal “we.” Employees are aware there is no “I” in team, but they know when you are paying lip service to “we.” Just as it’s incredibly obvious to employees when you take an insincere, obligatory tour to “check in” and show how much you seem to care, it’s just as obvious when you say “we” just because you think you should. Build a real sense of teamwork first and using “we” comes naturally. Teamwork actions speak much louder than any theoretically inclusive words.

I know there are plenty more. Feel free to share things on your “do not say” list — and things you wish had never been said to you.

Read more: http://www.bnet.com/blog/small-biz-advice/8-things-you-should-never-say-to-employees/1386#ixzz1PWUG4Yob