How to Fire an Employee Without Getting Sued

Have you ever wanted to fire someone but didn’t act? If so, you are not alone. In exploring reasons why CEOs fail, a 1999 article in Fortune magazine found that CEOs were often unwilling to fix people problems quickly. Interestingly, these CEOs confessed that they had ignored an inner voice that warned them of a problem and refused to listen to the people around them. When the CEOs finally did acknowledge that the person had to go, their top reason not to fire the problem employee was fear of being sued.

Not taking action has its own set of consequences, including wasing manager’ time and effort, increased error rates, lost opportunity, and negative impact on other workers’ morale and productivity. And, in the worst set of circumstances, you can be sued for not firing someone who needs to go.

10 Tips to Avoid Being Sued for Wrongful Termination.

1)Make sure that the employees know what is expected of them by providing them with up-to-date job descriptions and by regularly and clearly communicating your performance and behavior expectations.

2)For non-urgent matters, like lateness, use disciplinary procedures that are predictable, follow a logical sequence, and are flexible. The typical processes is verbal warning, written reprimand, probationary and final written warning, and termination. Following this sequence ensures that termination is a logical consequence and is not a surprise to the employee. For urgent matters, like bringing a weapon into the workplace, you can fire someone immediately.

3)If the facts of what the problem employee is or isn’t doing are at all unclear, conduct a thorough and unbiased investigation.

4)When you first notice an issue with an employee, begin keeping accurate written records. Document and date every incident and meeting.

5)Never fire someone illegally – because they filed a work’s compensation claim, were a “whistle-blower”, are taking FMLA, etc.

6)Involve your human resources department and follow your company policies.

7)Ensure that members of a protected class (race, color, religion, nationality, gender, age, disability) are treated the same as employees outside the classification.

8)Conduct the termination face-to-face,include a witness, and meet in a private setting.

9)The termination meeting should last no more than 15 minutes. Tell the employee that he/she is being terminated, give the reason, ask for his or her explanation, and make clear that the decision is final. Most workers who sue their former employers do so because they want a full explanation of why they were let go or want a chance to tell their side of the story.

10)Explain what benefits the employee will receive and when he or she will receive their final paycheck, offer severance and career outplacement, explain your job reference policy, review confidentiality and non-compete agreements, and collect company property.

NO MATTER WHAT, TREAT THE EMPLOYEE WITH RESPECT

Fearless Performance Evaluations

Every staff meeting at the school followed the same course: Someone or something would set off a teacher I’ll call Mrs. Smith, and her tirade would begin. Others teachers would slump in their chairs, glancing down the table at the school head I’ll call Dr. Jones, to see if she could rein Mrs. Smith in. By the time Mrs. Smith’s storm blew past, the meeting was derailed and the faculty members whose views and issues had been trampled were sullen and resentful.

So when Dr. Jones showed up in my office, she had a serious problem: a performance evaluation that she had to deliver but dreaded—even feared. As much as she had hoped that Mrs. Smith’s behavior would just go away, she couldn’t avoid dealing with it any longer.

How could I help her? The key, I thought, was an appeal to Dr. Jones’ professional training. “The philosophy of your school is to nurture students and help them grow,” I told her. “You need to do the same for Mrs. Smith. Giving her honest feedback is one of the most loving things you can do. You know she has a problem, the other teachers know—and she knows it, too. Her behavior doesn’t fit in with the values of the school or her colleagues. You need to help her find a way out of her problem.”

Like most bosses, Dr. Jones had never thought of the positive aspects of employee feedback. But as we talked, she began to take notes and gain confidence. “I can do this,” she said, “and I think it will be OK.” Once she saw the evaluation as an opportunity to motivate, coach, and teach, she knew what to do and felt comfortable doing it.

Now you’re saying, “Sure, I have problem employees—but I’m not a professional educator.” But wherever you work, as a supervisor you are a coach, mentor, and teacher. We often say that employees are our greatest asset—but just as often we avoid making the constant investment of time and attention to make the most of that asset.

In his autobiography, former GE CEO, Jack Welch, reports that he spent about half of his time on people: recruiting new talent, picking the right staff for particular positions, grooming young stars, developing managers, dealing with under-performers, and reviewing the entire talent pool. “Having the most talented people in each of our businesses is the most important thing,” Welch says. “If we don’t, we lose.”

In my practice as a human resources consultant, I see a steady parade of bosses who don’t know how to make those investments. They fear performance evaluations, so they avoid giving feedback. They dread the emotional part—the possibility of making their colleagues unhappy or causing outbursts. When they do give feedback, they send the wrong message by emphasizing only poor performance. Or they deliver messages in the wrong settings—in front of coworkers, or through e-mail or notes—putting their employees on the defensive and increasing the odds for misunderstanding.

Yet, when I meet with these bosses, I remind them that the people who helped them most in their own careers were the people who told them the truth. In the best-seller, Good to Great, Jim Collins discovered that “the good-to-great companies continually refined the path to greatness with the brutal facts of reality.”

How can managers do a better job of giving feedback? Consider these common problems, and see whether you see yourself. If so, you might find my solutions helpful.

Eight feedback foul-ups

• Doing nothing. Ignoring a problem in hopes it will go away is probably the most common mistake I see. I constantly remind managers of the cost of their inaction—work done poorly, extra burdens on coworkers, growing resentment within their team—and ask them to envision what could happen if the problem gets worse. That exercise can motivate them to figure out what they need to do and say.
• Giving only negative feedback. It’s only human to focus on the things that bother you. When you’re shopping, how many times have you complimented a clerk for a job well done—compared to the number of times you’ve complained bitterly when something goes wrong? But in the workplace, your staff finds it demoralizing to hear only about their shortfalls. You must make a conscious effort to find and praise examples of good work—even with workers who fall short of expectations.
• Giving negative feedback months after the fact. This happens when managers give appraisals only on the evaluation schedule dictated by HR—not when their staffers need it. People get upset when the boss saves up all the complaints for the annual review, and no wonder: If you tell me I screwed up with a report five months ago, what I can do about it now? Why didn’t tell me when I could have fixed it? Evaluation must be a constant, year-round process.
• Criticizing things your staffers don’t know how to do better. If they don’t know, they can’t improve. Your job is to help them solve problems. So spend less time on how they messed up and more on how can they learn how to improve.
• Blaming the need for negative feedback on someone else. When you say, “The board wants me to tell you…” or “The big boss is mad because you…” you’re setting up an us-versus-them situation. Worse, you make it sound as if top management are the bad guys and you’re merely the helpless messenger—hardly an endorsement of your own authority. Take responsibility for feedback. If you believe the board or boss is right about a criticism, say, “So-and-so pointed this out to me, and I have to say that I agree—you’ve got to get better.”
  What if you don’t agree with the criticism you’ve been told to pass along? Don’t give feedback you don’t agree with or understand. Instead, take the issue up privately with the person who wants you to deliver the bad news.
  That said all of us face situations where we have doubts about our organization’s strategy but need to get in line with the message from the top. Don’t tell your employees you don’t like the message you’re delivering—that will only undermine the organization and your own authority. Simply say, “This is the directive we have to comply with” or “This is the direction we have to go in.”
• Giving drive-by feedback. This is a problem even if the comment is positive—as when the boss breezes by and says, “That was great”—and you’re left thinking, “What was great?” Take the time to be specific. The more detailed you are about exactly what you appreciate; the more likely the person is to repeat that performance in the future. Was the report clear, on time, well written, or what? Tell me, and then I can repeat what you praise me for.
• Criticizing in public. Besides being humiliating, a public dressing-down hardly encourages the kind of two-way dialogue that leads to improvement. Keep your negative evaluations behind closed doors.
• Criticizing via voicemail, e-mail, or little notes. Sure, leaving messages is easy and quick for you—but it’s hardly productive for the recipient. Leaving messages makes it impossible to tell if the recipient understands what you’re unhappy with and why. (E-mail is notorious for being misunderstood in the best of circumstances.) Besides, do you want to be known as the boss who made people afraid to check their messages? Again, set aside a private time and place and talk to the person face to face.

Is it hard to give feedback and evaluations? Yes. But the good news is, it gets easier with practice—and it pays. Study after study show that employees who have clear goals, get coaching, and receive formal evaluations feel a stronger commitment to their employer and greater job satisfaction. In a world where managers are constantly on the hunt for talent, the time you spend growing your own is the best investment you can make.

Sidebar 1

Four Performance Appraisal Problems
And how to handle them.

1: The C Student—whose performance is tolerable but really needs to be much better.

Before the meeting: Think through what the person is doing right as well as what you want to see improved. Then consider what you know about what motivates her—and if you don’t know, plan to find out during the evaluation.

During the evaluation: Start with the positive. Talk about which parts of her performance are acceptable and what you want her to keep doing.

Then talk about the context—what your organization or the competition is doing, and why that requires even better performance. Segue from there into her own motivators. Does she want a bigger salary or a promotion? Then, if she is to reach her goals, she needs to improve her performance.

The approach is like basic sales: You’re trying to sell her on the need to make progress, and the best way is to tailor your pitch so it will resonate and she’ll buy in.

Finally, get into the specifics of how to improve. Does she understand what needs to be done? What training and equipment does she need? What deadline is feasible for making the improvement? What accomplishments will you watch for along the way?

If the feedback doesn’t take: Sometimes a C student just doesn’t advance despite your efforts to boost both her training and her motivation. So you have to ask yourself: Is this a position I can afford to allow to remain acceptable—or must I raise the bar?

If she does a job that is not mission-critical but nevertheless hard to fill, you may decide you have to live with her. But if there’s a business need for performance at a higher level, you must be willing to go down the path toward termination.

2. The B+ Student—a good performer who nevertheless needs to improve in specific areas. The danger: The person is extremely sensitive and already thinks he’s doing A work.

With a thin-skinned staffer, you can help him overcome his fears by choosing from a mix of strategies:

• Frame the conversation so that the improvement sounds like a challenge instead of criticism. You might say something like this: “Because of the way you do X and Y, you are really valuable to our organization. So I want to talk about what we could do to help you get to the next level. Would you be willing to talk about that?”
• Avoid surprises. Don’t spring bad news on him. Let him know that agreeing to take on a challenging improvement program won’t lead to a bad performance review down the line. Then give the feedback about the needed improvement clearly and concisely, with no apologies. The fewer words, the better. Allow time for silence as he thinks through what you’ve said. He may even want to go home and return the next day to talk further.
• Consider suggesting 360-degree feedback from colleagues. Explain that this is a way of collecting data—a way to learn about others’ perceptions of his strengths and weaknesses so he can improve accordingly. The process can be a valuable tool for career development. But if the person is terrified by the prospect, do not force it.
• Realize he may need to feel he has some control over the improvement process. Some people find it terrifying to be out of control of what’s going to happen. In that case, ask him to come up with a plan for improvement, including needed resources. The more he get involved in solving the problem, the more he will feel he’s doing what he wants to do, not what you’ve demanded.

3. The Bomb—an unguided missile.

Keep in mind the time-honored adage that you can’t control another person, but you can control what you say. Start by thinking through what you need to get out of this feedback session. How can you frame the conversation so he gets it? Be prepared to speak clearly and concisely, and don’t back down.

Think about the conversation like a game of chess and strategize. If he does get angry, what might he do and say? How will you respond in a way that’s calm, positive, and firm so you can move the conversation in the direction it needs to go?

If you find yourself losing control and getting angry, end the meeting and reschedule. And, if you think the employee could become violent, have a third person—perhaps from HR—with you during the meeting.

4. The Waterfall—a notorious weeper.

Bring a box of Kleenex. Close the door. Then be prepared to sit it out, sympathetically but calmly, until she can pull herself together and talk about how to solve the performance problem.

As you wait through the tears, remember that you’re the boss—dealing with all kinds of people and all kinds of emotions is what you get paid the big bucks for.

Sidebar 2

The FAQs on Effective Appraisals

How often should you conduct a formal performance appraisal?

During a staffer’s first year with your organization, meet quarterly. Once he or she has settled in and is doing well, twice a year is enough. Just make sure that in between times you talk routinely—especially after a great success you want to reinforce or a big screw-up you want to correct.

How long should an appraisal meeting last?

The basic answer: as long as it takes. Generally, though, allow an hour to set goals and measurements and an hour at appraisal time to go over results.

How soon should you follow up on a task that needs improvement?

Meet again the next week to measure progress and show how important the issue is to you. Then meet regularly so the person knows you haven’t forgotten and you’re there if help is needed. People don’t change overnight—and they seldom change perfectly on the first try. Nudge them to better performance.

Do you have to take time for an appraisal even if everything is going well?

Absolutely. The meeting may be a little shorter if there are few issues to go over. But all employees want to know you’re paying attention. Considering all the time they spend at work, if the boss can’t devote one or two conversations a year to their contributions, they’ll be demoralized. In contrast, they may be energized by time devoted to how to work more effectively and efficiently.

Are there word bombs the boss should always avoid?

Don’t use words that are derogatory —such as “stupid”—or that are judgmental—such as “lazy.” Instead, state the facts: “I have observed you daily sitting at your desk with the paper and drinking coffee when we have data waiting to be entered.”

What is the one thing that will make you a better performance appraiser?

Just do it. From experience and from statistical studies, you can see that those who get regular feedback are much more motivated than those who don’t. If you don’t know how to give feedback perfectly, then learn about it. No matter what, the worst thing you can do is do nothing.

Mentoring and Millennials

In their book, The 2020 Workplace, Jeannie C. Meister and Karie Willyerd report that the top three things Millennials want from their bosses is straight feedback, coaching and mentoring, and personal development. There is a danger in not providing these kinds of learning experiences in your organization as one in four Millennials anticipate leaving their present employer or work setting within the next year and one in three Millennials admit they are not putting their full energies into their current job.

A Case Study for Managing Millennials

Jack was hired four months ago to work in research and development for a company that specializes in health care products. Jack graduated from college last June and this is his first professional job. He was assigned to a few projects and has done a good job so far. Because Jack has expressed a desire to take on more responsibility, his boss, Karen, asks him to take on lead for researching a new product. Jack is psyched … this is his opportunity to show what he’s got. After a couple of days, Jack has researched a lot of information from specialized magazines, on the Internet, and by connecting with college friend through Linked In and Twitter. He wants to meet with Karen to ask her some questions and keep the momentum going but she has been traveling and sends him a few quick emails in response that don’t really answer his questions. Frustrated, Jack posts on his Linked In page and his Twitter update “My boss is useless … not answering my questions so it’s keeping me from getting my work done.”

What mistakes did Karen make in managing her new Millennial employee, Jack? First, she should have let Jack know the company policy on using social media to be critical of the company. Next, for a new project like this, where Jack will have a lot of learning, she might have had him work in a team with more experienced researchers. And, because she won’t always be around to give Jack on demand coaching and counsel, she could assign him a mentor.

According to Bob Canalosi, chief learning officer of General Electric Health Care, a top leadership competency needed in the 2020 workplace is to be a “legendary builder of people and teams.” Canalosi explains this as “coaching and mentoring both face-to-face and virtually; challenging people to achieve more than they believed they could.” Marshall Goldsmith, executive educator and coach, also predicts that a top competency for leaders of the future will be “sharing leadership.”

The Millennial Generation, born between 1977 and 1998, are the latest generation to enter the workplace. They are 75 million strong in size and are characterized as being self-confident, focused on learning and moving up quickly, team-oriented, well networked, and technologically savvy.

Millennials have one other thing in common: no matter how smart and confident they are, because they are new to the professional workplace, they need and want mentoring. In addition, the timeline for leadership development is ramping up. Millennials may be thrust into leadership roles faster than any other leaders in the last thirty years, as there are not nearly enough Gen X workers to fill the ranks of the departing Baby Boomers. The good news is that they want to be leaders.

Traditional mentoring, long renowned for its success is developing leaders, is typically a relationship between someone more experienced with someone less experienced. “Mentoring,” says author Gordon Shea, “is a fundamental form of human development where one person invests time, energy and personal know-how in assisting the growth and ability of another person.” There are several different ways that you can incorporate mentoring into your workplace.

Years ago, Jack Welch realized that General Electric was falling behind other companies in its use of the internet as a business tool, so he instituted a “reverse mentoring” program at GE. He required more than 500 of his top executives to find a younger, tech-savvy “Web mentor” to teach them how to use the web and understand e-business. Organizations from Proctor and Gamble to the Seattle Public Schools have implemented reverse mentoring programs to help them understand technology, business trends, and pop culture. And, Wharton School of Business requires older MBA candidates with long resumes to partner with younger, full-time students.

Reverse mentoring can be used to teach today’s senior leaders how to use social media to connect with customers. It’s also an effective way to give your Millennial employees a window into the higher levels of the organization, so that when the older mentors retire, the younger generation has a better understanding of the business.

The beauty of reverse mentoring comes from the fact that Millennials thrive on relationships. Powerful relationships are created when younger employers are engaged in teaching senior employees. Because Millennials love sharing their ideas and want to know that they are being heard, if you invite them to give you constructive feedback, you can gain a different perspective and help them learn leadership skills. Reverse mentoring can benefit both Millennials and the organizations they work for.

In a group mentoring environment the mentor works with a larger group than the one-on-one relationship used in the reverse mentoring approach. There are several different types of group mentoring. For example, in facilitated group mentoring, the group may hire an outside expert to facilitate discussion on a topic they want to learn more about. Peer group mentoring brings together peers with similar development needs. Participants present a problem or issue and the other members of the group respond to the problem or issue. The collective wisdom of the group is harnessed to solve problems and value is created for all group members. In team group mentoring, the team defines mutual learning goals and works with one or more mentors who facilitate their learning.

We See The World Global Peer Mentoring Project is a collaboration between Communities in Schools of New Jersey Mentoring Success Center and YouthWorks CIC in Belfast, Ireland. High school students meet with youth from across the globe and discuss topics like human rights and education. The program encourages students to share experiences and learn through video conferencing, social media video and other technology. Following the recent political events in Egypt, they connected with teens there to learn from one another.

Millennials want opportunities to interact with and learn from their peers. Group mentoring may offer these workers a familiar, comfortable setting in which they can interact with peers, while at the same time receive guidance and support from a more senior person. And, group mentoring can be built around electronic communications platforms like Skype, web casts, etc.

Anonymous/on demand mentoring is generally used to move “high potential” individuals to their next level of achievement. This process is often anonymous – the protégé may not know who the mentor is – and commonly uses outside or third party experts selected by the company. Protégés are matched with trained mentors through psychological testing and background reviews.

There are many benefits of an anonymous mentoring relationship including a higher level of discloser and candid interaction. The anonymity frees up the mentor, who may have learned a lot from his or her mistakes and therefore may be more comfortable sharing his or her war stories anonymously. Another benefit is that it ensures that mentors have an agenda-free interest in the protégé’s professional development. And, the protégé may be more willing to open up and discuss problems and uncertainties they experience when their identity is anonymous.

Time zone, issues of geography and culture differences also tend to be less important in anonymous/on demand mentoring as the communication between mentors and protégés is entirely online. This mentoring option is perfect for Millennials, who are technologically-savvy and want timely information and feedback.

Traditional one-on-one mentoring is still a powerful way to develop Millennials. One-on-one mentoring gives them practice with one-on-one interactions and affords them personal attention, feedback, and the opportunity to share and challenge ideas. Millennials like structure and stability, so one-on-one mentoring should include scheduled meetings, clear and consistent communication, and a more take-charge attitude from mentors. Being authentic is important to Millennials; mentors must lead by example. Mentors can invite their protégés to shadow them, have protégés observe them conduct a meeting or presentation, give protégés recommendations of e-books to read, and check in with protégés from time to time just to see how they are doing.

One-on-one mentoring can utilize new technologies such as conducting meetings via Skype, introducing your protégé to others via Twitter, inviting your protégé to participate in Webinars you conduct, or writing on your blog about your protégé.

One of the quickest ways to sabotage a mentoring relationship, for either partner, is to lose trust. Transparency and confidentiality must be discussed such as setting boundaries about what conversations are private and what can be shared with others.

Mentoring is an affordable, creative and smart tool to tap into the talents of your Millennial workers, engage them in your company, ready them for future leadership roles, and meet the challenges of the 2020 workplace.

Fifty Ways to Lose Your Employees

“People join companies but leave managers” is a common quote. A study done by the Saratoga Institute found that the relationship a worker has with his or her immediate boss is the main reason why people stay or quit a job. And, The Corporate Leadership Council noted that the quality of management is extremely important in retaining key talent.

In other words, managers play a crucial role in employee retention. Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordon-Evans, authors of Love ’em or Lose ’em, a wonderful resource on retention, write that the best managers, whose employees want to keep working for them, do several things well. According to Kaye and Jordon-Evans, good managers provide their employees with honest feedback, respect differences, listen, empower their workers, and create an enjoyable work environment.

So, in tune with the lyrics of the Paul Simon song, Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover, here are what you need to do to keep, not lose, your employees:

1.      Slip out the back, Jack.  As Kaye and Jordon-Evans suggest. empower your employees. Create a strategic vision and communicate it. Develop clear job descriptions. Ask employees for their input and ideas. Then let them do their job and get out of the way.

2.      Make a new plan, Stan. Describe your company culture in job ads. Interview job candidates for fit. And conduct reference checks with fit in mind.

3.      You don’t need to be coy, Roy. Link vacation time and stock options to tenure. Reward good performance.

4.      Just set yourself free. Communicate changes ahead of time so employees know what is coming down the pike, why change is happening, and how those changes will affect them. Anticipate and expect questions.

5.      Hop on the bus, Gus. Provide new employees with social onboarding activities that will help them get to know their co-workers like treasure hunts, tours, meet and greets, company training, buddy programs, and mentoring programs.

6.      You don’t need to discuss much. Offer a competitive compensation package so employees won’t be seduced away by higher wages and better benefits.

7.      Just drop off the key, Lee. Provide training and development to allow employees to learn new skills.

8.      And get yourself free. Last, go back to what the research says and train your managers on the skills needed to retain top talent … like providing helpful performance feedback, being a good listener, respecting differences, and creating a satisfying workplace.

I am curious. What are your top retention strategies? In your experience, what works best and what doesn’t work so well?

Communication Matters

As a human resources consultant, I have conducted many employee surveys over the years to ascertain what employees like about their workplaces and what they think needs to be changed. In many cases, one of the key recommendations from employees to make the workplace better is “provide better communication.”

What do employees want to know about? They want to know before a change occurs that it is coming. They want to know why the change is happening. And most of all, they want to know how it will affect them. If you can get ahead of your communications efforts by providing answers to these questions, your employees will be less stressed, more productive, and your change efforts will be more successful.

According to A Manager’s Guide to Communicating with Employees, “from a communications perspective, employees feel appreciated and valued when:

• §  they are the first to hear important news
• §  they are regularly consulted
• §  they are listened to
• §  their suggestions are acted upon.”

Some of the best ways I have found to communicate with employees are as follows:

• 1.      Send mass emails for communicating information that is timely such as an office closing due to bad weather.
• 2.      Conduct regular staff meetings to discuss department news, delegate work, and share information from senior management.
• 3.      Conduct regular Town Hall meetings, hosted by senior leaders, to provide high-level information about upcoming events or give status updates. Anticipate and welcome questions from your audience.
• 4.      Encourage employees to let you know what’s not working and offer their suggestions for improvement. Create a culture where open communication – the good, the bad and the ugly – is sanctioned.
• 5.      Provide a suggestion box and reward good ideas. Let employees know that suggestions need to be positive, respectful of others, and doable. For example, “Fire my manager” is not an appropriate use of a suggestion box.
• 6.      Walk around the office and be available for spontaneous conversations.
• 7.      Meet regularly with employees, one on one, to discuss their performance.
• 8.      Conduct fun teambuilding exercises and meeting ice-breakers for employees to get to know one another.

Finally, to be a good communicator, make sure that you have been heard. Ask questions to learn if your message has gotten through to your audience. As George Bernard Shaw is quoted as saying: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

I am curious … what are your best ideas for effective workplace communication?

Judy Lindenberger, MBA, is President of The Lindenberger Group, an award-winning human resources consulting firm located in New Jersey (www.lindenbergergroup.com). To contact Judy, call (609) 730-1049 or email info@lindenbergergroup.com

A Case for Conducting Reference Checks

With resume falsification an ongoing concern, many organizations have become more aggressive in conducting reference and background checks. Doing so is a best practice and is not required by law. If you plan to conduct reference and background checks, which I highly recommend you do, here are some pointers to follow.

As a starting point in your reference checking activities, you may want to verify the correct spelling of applicant’s name(s), check for aliases, verify the applicant’s SSN, verify current and previous addresses, and verify the applicant’s home telephone number. Next check information related to educational, business, and professional achievements. You can verify degrees earned, certificates received, and professional designations obtained. And, depending on the nature and requirements of the job, such as bonding or security clearance requirements, the degree of contact with the public, and other factors, check the applicant’s credit history and conduct a criminal conviction check.

Since some references may be reluctant to discuss an employee’s work performance or conduct, it has become common practice to have applicants sign a form, releasing their references from liability for responding to your inquiries.

In my experience, telephone or email inquiries are usually the quickest way to contact references. You could also send a letter on your company stationary requesting a reference. As a rule of thumb, I like to get three references for each qualified job candidate.

Seek only information that is relevant to the position being filled and which will help you to choose the best candidate. Never request or collect information about an applicant — or employee — that you can’t or won’t use. Reference questions about an applicant’s propensity for filing discrimination charges, OSHA and workers’ compensation claims, union grievances, or employment practices lawsuits, for instance, place you on a slippery slope, since you may not be allowed to use this information in making a hiring decision. For example: if you do not hire an applicant after receiving information about previous discrimination claims activity — even though your decision was based on other factors — the EEOC may charge both you and the organization ­that provided you with negative information with unlawful retaliation.

Plan your questions and ask each reference the same list of questions. Give the person time to respond, don’t put words in his or her mouth, and, if you aren’t sure what he or she is trying to say, ask follow up questions. Here are of some of my favorite questions to ask when doing a reference check:

§  How do you know this person? For how long?

§  How would you describe him/her professionally and personally?

§  On a scale of 1 – 10, with 10 being the highest, how would you rate this person on meeting his or her business goals?

§  We all have strengths and areas of weakness. What is his/her greatest strength and biggest challenge?

§  What would you advise me about how to manage him or her?

§  Would you hire this person again? Why or why not?

§  Tell me about this person’s level of integrity.

§  In your opinion, what is this person’s growth potential?

§  Is there anything else I should know?

Given how important each hiring decision is, I believe it makes good sense to spend the extra time to conduct a reference check. What about you? What have been your experiences in conducting reference checks and how has it benefited you?