CATER CLEANING COMPANY

Getting Better Applicants

If you were to ask Jennifer and her father what the main problem was in running their firm, their
answer would be quick and short: hiring good people. Originally begun as string of coin operated
Laundromats requiring virtually no skilled help, the chain grew to six stores, each heavily dependent on
skilled managers, cleaner-spotters and pressers. Employees generally have no more than a high school
education (often less), and the market for them is very competitive.
Over a typical weekend, literally dozens of ads for experienced pressers or cleaners-spotters can
be found in area newspaper. All these people usually are paid around $ 15.00 per hour, and they change
jobs frequently. Jennifer and her father thus face the continuing task of recruiting and hiring qualified
workers out of a pool of individuals they feel are almost nomadic in their propensity to move from area
to area and job to job. Turnover in their stores (as in the stores of many of their competitors) often
approaches 400%. “Don’t talk to me about human resource planning and trend analysis, “says Jennifer.
“We are fighting an economic war and I am happy just to be able to round up enough live applicants to
be able to keep m trenches fully manned.”
Questions:
a) How would you recommend we go about reducing the turnover in our stores?
There are several recommendations to lower the turnover in stores as High employee turnover hurts a
company’s bottom line.
1. Hire the right people
The best way to ensure employees don’t leave you is to make sure you are hiring the right
employees to begin with. Define the role clearly, both to yourself and to the candidates. And
then be absolutely sure the candidate is a fit not only for it, but for your company culture.
2. Fire people who don’t fit
As the old saying goes, “a stitch in time, saves nine.” The same goes for cutting employees loose
when necessary. Sometimes even when you follow the advice above, you get an employee who,
no matter what you try to do, just doesn’t fit. And, no matter how effective they might be at
their actual work, an employee who is a bad fit is bad for your culture, and that creates “culture
debt.” They will do more damage than good by poisoning the well of your company. Cut them
loose.
3. Keep compensation and benefits current
Be sure that you are paying employees the fair going wage for their work (or better) and offer
them competitive benefits. This might seem like a no brainer but you’d be surprised how few
companies offer raises that keep up with an employee’s development and actual rising worth.
4. Encourage generosity and gratitude
Encourage pro-social behavior in your employees. When they are given the opportunity to
connect with one another through acts of generosity and the expression of gratitude,
employees will be healthier, happier, and less likely to fly the coop. And by encouraging them to
be on the lookout for good behaviors to commend, you give people a sense of ownership of the
company.
5. Recognize and reward employees
Show your employees they are valued and appreciated by offering them real-time recognition
that celebrates their successes and their efforts. Make it specific, social and supported by
tangible reward, and you, too, will be rewarded with their loyalty.
 6. Offer flexibility
Today’s employees crave a flexible life/work balance. That impacts retention directly. In fact, a
study found that 76% of managers and 80% of employees indicated that flexible work
arrangements had positive effects on retention. And more and more companies know it. That
means, if you’re not offering employees flexibility around work hours and locations, they might
easily leave you for someone who will.
7. Pay attention to engagement
This one sounds obvious, but for too many leaders interest in engagement is limited to the
results of engagement surveys. It’s not enough simply to run an engagement survey once a year.
You need save most of your energy to take action based on the results and you need to work to
build a culture of engagement in your company all year long.
8. Prioritize employee happiness
Happiness may sound a bit soft and squishy to many execs, but the numbers behind it are
anything but. Employee happiness is a key indicator of job satisfaction, absenteeism and
alignment with values just for starters. Investing in the happiness of your employees will pay
dividends in engagement, productivity and yes, retention
9. Make opportunities for development and growth
Employees place huge value on opportunities for growth. In fact, a recent Cornerstone
survey drew a direct connection between lack of development opportunity and high turnover
intentions.
10. Clean up performance reviews
Performance reviews offer a prime opportunity for a big win to increase trust and fortify your
relationship with employees. Improve performance management by overhauling reviews, and
watch employee trust and satisfaction grow.
11. Provide an inclusive vision
One key factor in employee engagement and happiness, according to experts, is to provide them
with a sense of purpose and meaning in their work. Offer employees a strong vision and goals
for their work and increase their sense of belonging and loyalty to your organization.
12. Demonstrate and cultivate respect
Finally, don’t discount respect when it comes to creating a magnetic culture. In fact, in one 2012
study, respect in the workplace was revealed to be a key factor in voluntary turnover. Find ways
to cultivate and nurture respect in your workplace and it will pay off in higher retention.

b) Provide a details list of recommendations concerning how we should go about increasing our
pool of acceptable job applicants so we no longer face the need to hire almost anyone who
walks in the door. (Your recommendations regarding any other recruiting strategies you would
suggest we use.)
1. Develop accurate job descriptions.

Your first step is to make sure you have an effective job description for each position in your company.
Your job descriptions should reflect careful thought as to the roles the individual will fill, the skill sets
they'll need, the personality attributes that are important to completing their tasks, and any relevant
experience that would differentiate one applicant from another. This may sound fairly basic, but you'd
be surprised at how many small companies fail to develop or maintain updated job descriptions.

2. Compile a "success profile."

 In addition to creating job descriptions, it's important to develop a "success profile" of the ideal
employee for key positions in your company that are critical to the execution of your business plan.
These might include such positions as team leaders, district managers and salespeople. For example,
let's say you currently have 20 salespeople. Within that group, you have four that are top performers, 12
that are middle-of-the-road and four that aren't quite making the grade. If you could bump the number
of folks in the top group from 20 percent to 33 percent, that could have a dramatic impact on your
company's performance.

To accomplish that goal, you need to profile everyone in the sales group to identify any skills and
attributes that are common to the top group but missing from the other groups. Using this information,
you'll be able to develop a profile to help you select the candidates most likely to succeed in that
position.

3. Draft the ad, describing the position and the key qualifications required.

Although some applicants will ignore these requirements and respond regardless, including this
information will help you limit the number of unqualified applicants.

4. Post the ad in the mediums most likely to reach your potential job candidates.

Of course, the Internet has become the leading venue for posting job opening, but don't overlook
targeted industry publications and local newspapers.

5. Develop a series of phone-screening questions.

Compile a list of suitable questions you can ask over the phone to help you quickly identify qualified
candidates and eliminate everyone else.

6. Review the resumes you receive and identify your best candidates.

Once you post your ad, you'll start receiving resumes...sometimes many more than you anticipated.
Knowing what you're looking for in terms of experience, education and skills will help you weed through
these resumes quickly and identify potential candidates.

7. Screen candidates by phone.

Once you've narrowed your stack of resumes to a handful of potential applicants, call the candidates
and use your phone-screening questions to further narrow the field. Using a consistent set of questions
in both this step and your face-to-face interviews will help ensure you're evaluating candidates equally.

8. Select candidates for assessment.

Based on the responses to your phone interviews, select the candidates you feel are best qualified for
the next step in the process.

9. Assess your potential candidates for their skills and attributes using a proven
assessment tool.
A resume and phone interview can only tell you so much about a job applicant, so you'll need a
dependable assessment tool to help you analyze the core behavioral traits and cognitive reasoning
speed of your applicants. For example, a good test will provide insights as to whether the individual is
conscientious or lackadaisical, introverted or extroverted, agreeable or uncompromising, open to new
ideas or close-minded, and emotionally stable or anxious and insecure.

The success profile you created for each position will help you determine which behavioral traits are
important for that position. For example, you would expect a successful salesperson to be extroverted.
On the other hand, someone filling a clerical position might be more introverted.

10. Schedule and conduct candidate interviews.

Once you've selected candidates based on the previous steps, schedule and conduct the interviews. Use
a consistent set of 10 or 12 questions to maintain a structured interview and offer a sound basis for
comparing applicants.

11. Select the candidate.

Make your selection by matching the best applicant to the profiled job description.

12. Run a background check on the individual to uncover any potential problems not
revealed by previous testing and interviews.
13. Make your offer to the candidate.

The information you collected during the interview process will provide you with important insights as
to starting compensation levels and training needs.