When New Hire Evaluations Go Unanswered

If it inevitable that your emails asking for new hire evaluations will go unanswered from time to time by both managers and new hires. This can be for a variety of reasons that include workload, vacations, procrastination, or an emergency that needs to be handled. You should wait a week before sending a follow-up email. This is an acceptable amount of time. Sending a follow-up email is very important. It shows that you are serious about your work and want to gauge how each employee is performing in a company. While you will have many other duties to perform, sending a follow-up email is important and will not take more than a few minutes. You may have to visit the manager or new hire personally to see how the new hire is performing if you don’t receive a response from your email. Sometimes this approach is better for those who may have a lot to say or forget to respond to emails. Once you have worked with managers and others long enough, you will be able to judge how to approach them on these matters.

What to Do with the Information Gathered:

Once you have gathered your information, add it to the new hire’s employee folder. If your company has procedures to follow concerning follow-up interviews, probationary notification, or additional training, you should follow the protocol. If the company does not have any of these procedures, you may want to ask what your next step is. Talk to a supervisor to determine the best course of action. After you have performed a few new hire evaluations, take a look at the information gathered.

-> What does it say about the recruitment methods used?

->How many new hires have left the company before their evaluation period was up?

-> What are the criteria managers use to evaluate new hires? Is it the same criteria you were given?


-> What are possible improvements that can be made in terms of recruiting? -> What are some of the weaknesses in training that need to be addressed?

-> Are new hires happy?

-> What is the percentage of new hires that meet expectations and the percentage of those who are not? This information can be used during the recruitment process in order to adequately provide a job description that can be used to determine who is qualified and who is not when a job opening becomes available. This will help prevent future hiring mistakes from happening.

About the author: Dakotta J.K. Alex, social venture director and author of “Damn, I Need a Job. Again!” and “The Recruiters Guide Book,” is a Global HR Solutions Consultant specializing in human capital recruitment, process management and career analysis in the US, Europe and China.

How to Conduct New Hire Evaluations

How to Conduct New Hire Evaluations:


There are a few ways to conduct new hire evaluations. You can create a short questionnaire that managers have to fill out that basically state if the new hire is meeting the expectations of the department. Before sending the questionnaire, you should ask the manager to outline what they expect from their employees. This will give you a better idea of whether new hires are meeting them or not.

You can also create a list of criteria and ask managers to rate them in order from most to least importance. A sample list looks like this:





--> Goals


--> System compatibility


--> Capacity


--> Motivation


--> Knowledge and skills


--> Performance


--> Experience


--> Customer compatibility


--> Work group compatibility


--> Organization compatibility


--> Change/learning posture


--> Development areas



©HRMetrics.org




If the manager is considered difficult to work for by other employees, or you determine they are asking too much from their employees, you should proceed with the new hire evaluation questionnaire, but keep in mind that the evaluation is only one piece of information you should gather.

You should also send a questionnaire to the new hire. Ask them questions about their overall job satisfaction, if the job was different than what was explained in the recruitment process, how they are adjusting, and ask them to rate their performance.

Being able to hear from the manager and the new hire will give you a larger measurement of how the new hire is adapting to their position. You may need to schedule a follow-up interview with managers and new hires if you receive two different types of evaluations. Resolving these issues early will help create a more positive work environment.

Benefits of New Hire Evaluations:



It is surprising how few companies track the progress of new hires. According to an article published by HRMetrics.org, less than 20% of all companies evaluate new hires, which have decreased from 30% in 2003. While this task can be overwhelming at first, it provides a wealth of information you can use when recruiting, tracking employee progress, and evaluating recruitment methods.

There are numerous benefits to tracking new hires. You will be able to track the following:



--> Time it takes for a new hire to become acclimated to their new position


--> Get a better understanding of what managers are looking for in new hires


--> Evaluate personality/work performance


--> Determine if new hires were given an honest depiction of what they would be doing


--> Gain a better understanding of the work environment


By gathering this data through questionnaires, interviews, and observation, you will be able to use the information when recruiting. For example, if a new hire was not given an accurate job description, then you will need to change this information is presented. This is a small fix that may prevent the hiring of those who are not qualified for a position.



When to Conduct New Hire Evaluations:



This is perhaps the trickiest part of measuring new hire performance. You may need to ask managers how long they expect new hires to take until they are able to perform all duties required. This can be anywhere from 30 to 90 days. Companies that track new hires usually have a ninety day evaluation period. This is usually enough time for new hires to become comfortable in their new working environment.

There are many issues that can affect employee performance including:



--> Work environment

--> Managerial style

--> Work commute

--> Personal issues

--> Employee conflict


While you cannot control these issues from affecting employee performance, you can take them into consideration and try to not allow them to taint your research. Waiting longer than three months to perform a new hire evaluation will allow the work environment to affect your data. If the work environment is hostile and the new hire finds themselves isolated, their work will begin to suffer. It is unfair to judge the performance of the new hire when they are under additional stress.

Each new hire will go through a ‘honeymoon’ period where they are learning about the inner workings of the workplace, meeting people, and learning how to perform their jobs. Usually after a ninety-day period, employees have made a few friends, understand what is expected of them, and should be performing job duties effectively.

New Hire Evaluations

Creating and Implementing New Hire Evaluations:

It can happen to any recruiter at any time, seasoned or new. Hiring an employee who turns out to be less than what you expected is a pitfall of the human resources field. When this happens, you will begin processing what has happened by asking yourself what went wrong in the recruiting process, how might a person who is less qualified slip through the cracks? Were they misleading? Did you miss important signs?
There are probably a few reasons why the wrong people get hired from time to time. But when this happens too often, you will have to implement new metrics to measure new hires, persuade managers to tell you what they are looking for in their employees, and use this information to avoid hiring those who may not be what your company is looking for in the future.

The Potential for Employee Discrimination

Employment discrimination laws:

It is the law which seek to prevent discrimination based on race, sex, religion, national origin, physical disability, and age by employers. Discriminatory practices include exhibiting a bias in hiring, promotion, job assignment, termination, compensation, and various forms of harassment.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported 72,302 individual discrimination charge filings in 1992. By 2004, the number had grown to 79,432. As a Human Resource Manager or business owner, you may be able to reduce your chances of an employee suing you by instituting

The following are the policies and practices:


1. Hire employees without consideration of their race, national origin, gender or age.


2. The handicap of an applicant should only be considered in the context of whether it will impede their job performance. It is important to take into account whether or not you could reasonably
accommodate the individual’s handicap so that they could perform the job.


3. If you are turning down an applicant because of something on their reference or security check, you should inform them of the reason why.


4. Have written job descriptions, including qualifications and requirements for all positions within your company.


5. Post all job openings and promote without any bias.


6. Review all current benefit, pension and retirement plans for any discriminatory language.


7. Inform employees of performance standards and penalties for violating company policy.


8. Provide written reprimands and opportunities to correct deficiencies.


9. Evaluate all employees regularly and in writing. Provide a copy of the evaluation to the employee for their records.


10. Institute a zero-tolerance policy for discriminatory actions on the part of any employee.


One final important practice that you should follow is to document, in writing, every phase of an employee’s time with your company. From hiring to the firing/layoff/resignation, every step should be well documented. In the event that there is a lawsuit, courts will expect to see written records of important decisions, meetings, problems, and company policies. Additionally, they will want to see proof that you were treating all employees the same.

While there is no list that can cover all possible safeguards, instituting the policies and practices listed above can reduce your chances of facing a lawsuit. More importantly, they just represent sound business practices that any business with employees should follow.

Employee Incentives

Gone are the days when employee incentives are confined to department store gift vouchers and cash bonuses. In order for companies to attract and attain the best staff companies are now becoming more and more creative in how they reward and incentivise their staff. Now human resource departments are presented with a wide range of options when making decisions on innovative incentives.
In fact, their bestselling options include dive holidays, trial instruction flight lessons, pamper-me packages as well as a helicopter twilight dinner. Indeed, these incentives will truly work their way to thrill employees and provide them with the rewards that they truly deserve! The great thing about giving activities as a way reward staff is that it gives them an opportunity to experience something that they may not ordinarily do or buy.
If you are thinking that these activities may be too costly or are only single-person experiences, think again! Many of these activities can start from as low as a $50, and they are just as fancy as higher priced incentives. Some examples of these would include body massages, coffee training courses or even rollerblading classes, all of which are relaxing and fun!
Alternatively, innovative activities for groups are also a great and fun way to build strong work relationships and foster greater team work amongst staff. After all you tend to spend a third of your day stuck in an office together, why not do something fun outside of office hours and have something exciting to talk about together. This naturally creates are much more harmonious workplace that is more conducive to greater productivity which is great for staff and the company concerned. For teambuilding, relaxing as well as some healthy intra-organization competition, activities such as corporate well-being programs, flying trapeze or go-kart mini grand prix, all of which will do nicely to help boost employee morale.
Extreme or high adrenalin sports are also very popular will would make great and attractive packages for the younger staff. Amongst these are shark dives, abseiling, AUSCAR driving courses, acrobatic air-show display flights and even jet-fighter flights. All of these are just great ideas and will definitely work their magic in encouraging employees to attain their goals.
At the end of the day staff want to know that they are not missing out on the finer things in life and feel as though their workplace is contributing to their work life balance. After all isn't life all about the experiences we do and share together. Why not make your workplace a place where experiences are shared.

Work place Violence

Who is at Risk:



Statistics show that, although no single occupation is immune from violence, violence in the workplace can definitely be seen to be clustered in certain occupations. Occupations having many, if not all, of the following characteristics also show the highest rate of incidents:

• Contact with the public
• Exchange of money
• Delivery of passengers, goods, or services
• Having a mobile workplace such as a taxicab or police cruiser
• Working with unstable or volatile persons in health care, social service, or criminal justice settings
• Working alone or in small numbers
• Working late at night or during early morning hours
• Working in high-crime areas
• Guarding valuable property or possessions
• Working in community-based settings

Depending on the area, taxi drivers had, by far, the highest incident rates. But, again, this is not to be seen as a national or international thing, but something that is dependent on the region where the assaults occur. The number one occupational group suffering the greatest number of assaults is not police and security officers as is often believed. No, the occupation shown to be most at risk are retail sales people, including but not limited to, convenience store personnel. This group is followed closely by those in the service industries like administrative personnel, teachers, and medical professionals. In fact, a report on incidents in one of the "calmest" countries - Sweden - shows medical professionals to be the highest occupation victimized by assault and other workplace violence. And, contrary to popular belief as reported by the media, the greatest threat comes, not from within a company's ranks but from outside.
The most difficult part of getting to the truth of the matter, as with all statistical data, is the fact that the numbers are probably far lower than what is actually occurring. Just as Human Resource managers and the companies that they represent are concerned about legal action in regards to giving reference information about past employees, most are also fearful of their public image should word spread about assaults against their employees.
Prevention and Countermeasures The growing trend for dealing with the problem of workplace violence is in teaching employees, supervisors, and executive management how to spot trouble signs before they occur. This is an excellent place to start to build a sound program. As with anything involving danger, the more information and awareness that can be developed, the more effective we can be in preventing the danger from ever occurring.
However, no program can be considered complete without including employee training for effectively handling, escaping, and surviving actual physical assaults. The fact is, that no amount of understanding and preventative measures will stop certain assailants from attacking. At that point, all that remains is for effective action that will ensure the physical safety and survival of the intended victims.

Remember:

Workplace violence is real. It can happen to any employee, in any company, at any time. And, it can happen to you or someone you care about