Basic Training

When the subject turns to personnel, you’ll frequently hear a fair amount of grumbling from signshop owners. The difficulty of finding "good help" is an article of faith these days with many managers. Having worked on both sides of the labor/management fence during my career, I’ve found that managers with the most personnel problems are usually the ones least capable in the areas of training and employee relations. They will complain to anyone willing to lend a sympathetic ear — but refuse to change their approach or methods of operation. Warm-body rules If you aren’t willing to invest in training new employees, you should expect to have recurring personnel problems. Your phone will ring bearing unwelcome tidings of jobs gone wrong. You will curse, "I thought that (expletive deleted) guy knew what he was doing!" This is the same fellow who, with two weeks’ experience under his belt, has been put in charge of an important project. These unhappy situations occur as the result of the immutable warm-body rule of management. Your foreman called in sick, so you patted the fresh recruit on the back saying, "I think you can handle this one for us George." Unfortunately, as it turns out, George is affectionately known to his fellow mechanics as "banana peel." When the subject turns to training these days, most sign companies have a stock reply: "We hire only experienced people." This is supposed to circumscribe further discussion, but merely begs the question, "Where did they get their experience?" Were the people trained by experienced workers, or simply given the crash course at Bubba’s Sign Shop? Has their experience developed good, safe work habits or merely reinforced improper procedures? These are the crucial questions that few people want to address. Because high turnover is typical of many sign companies, it’s certainly reasonable to question the value of training people who may soon depart. Companies that offer competitive compensation and health benefits, however, clearly have an advantage in retaining key personnel. Conversely, signshops who prefer to do staffing-on-the-cheap tend to get exactly what they have (or haven’t) paid for. When compensation and benefits are substandard, managers might as well address complaints about poor performance to their office walls. Dinosaurs Lest we forget, however, money isn’t everything. If you want to develop a competent, loyal workforce, you must appeal to the positive/constructive instincts in people. If you’re a person who doesn’t believe that such instincts exist, you should hire a real manager. The world’s highest pay scale can’t compensate for a boss who treats every employee like a suspect. This type of cynical approach leads to what I call "dinosaur management." I’m sure that many of you have seen the television program "Dinosaurs" with blue-collar guy, Earl Sinclair, and his fearsome boss, Mr. Richfield. According to the traditional management view depicted in the program, all employees are worthless and weak. The task of management, therefore, is to devise a huge list of punishments for deviant behavior (in Earl’s case, this includes the threat of being eaten alive by his boss). The idea of reinforcing positive behavior, when it occurs at all, is considered pointless. By negating the inherent capacity for merit in people, dinosaur management is a bleak and self-fulfilling prophecy. It frequently distinguishes the companies that become extinct from those that flourish. Making the grade A more enlightened style of management can discern the differences among individuals and utilizes specific criteria to select personnel for the sign industry. In terms of their value to your company, production and field workers may best be thought of in military terms. They are your company’s warriors, manning the front lines of a disputed battlefield between success and failure. If you think I’m overstating this analogy, talk to the families of sign mechanics, who are accustomed to seeing dad walk in the door at night looking like something the cat dragged in. The first criterion in selecting employees is to choose people you’d be proud to lead into battle. Despite some remarks I’ve heard from sign company managers, you should never resign yourself to hiring people with alcohol or drug problems — or those who can’t stay out of trouble with the law, creditors and others. Managing a sign company is difficult enough without carrying around all this extra baggage. Sometimes there’s a tendency to place all your employees in the same pot. True craftsmen aren’t distinguished from pretenders. This is like depriving soldiers of their rank. The best sign tradesmen I’ve known are individuals with substantial pride in their work and a willingness to sacrifice to reach objectives. Despite all the complaints, you can find such people to build your signs or man your crane trucks. Select production personnel primarily on the basis of their attitude about the job and their desire to excel. Choose people who aren’t satisfied with being average, but who are satisfied performing the routine mechanical tasks that represent the meat and potatoes of the sign trade. If you find that someone is not overtly proud of his work, you probably don’t want that person working for you. If the individual isn’t demonstrably sane, sober and reliable, don’t take him into battle. Trade and technical school graduates frequently make excellent candidates for signshop positions. Many of these schools have certificate programs in welding, metalworking and other skills related to the sign business. The key advantage to hiring a trade school graduate, however, is that your company is more likely to be getting an employee who prefers manual/mechanical work. Plenty of people enjoy working with their hands; these are the best candidates for sign company jobs. If you hire someone with no evidence of mechanical ability, just because they need a job (frustrated artists and musicians come to mind), you’re probably making a mistake. If you want to hire someone with previous sign industry experience, always contact their former employer first for a recommendation — or you could be inheriting someone else’s problem. It’s crucial to determine whether the applicant has been a productive, safe and courteous employee. The best source for this information, of course, is the owner of the business that employed your applicant. If the applicant was fired from his last job, that doesn’t necessarily disqualify him. Don’t be afraid to ask plenty of questions, and don’t rely solely on what you might hear from the company secretary or former co-workers. Boot camp Quite often, a capable warrior appears in the guise of a raw recruit. The quality of training this person receives determines his ultimate value to your company. Your best employees are also your best trainers, though some of them may not realize it. If you’ve hired someone who you believe is a good soldier-in-the-rough, pair the new recruit with a distinguished soldier and he’ll be well-trained. In some cases, personalities clash. It helps, therefore, if you have more than one "old soldier" in each department. Though they seldom admit it, getting the responsibility to train a younger worker is a feather in their cap. Your best employees will warm naturally to this task, particularly if you select a trainee with the requisite desire to excel. Managers must communicate with their trainers at every stage of the process. Is the trainee learning his tasks quickly and adapting well to the job environment? What is the foreman’s estimate of how the trainee would do on his own? This is certainly not a determination to be made on the basis of guesswork in short-handed situations. Worst of all, such "warm-body" substitutions are resented by your veteran employees who ask themselves and others, "What does the boss know about George’s ability, anyway?" Some employees may interpret these ad-hoc decisions as de-facto promotions (and in some cases they may be correct). Any general deserving the respect of his troops does not arbitrarily disrupt the chain of command. Show me a company where "dissing the boss" is a popular pastime, and I’ll show you a boss who has failed to ingrain respect and consistency in his organization. The buck stops here If you’ve got big problems as a sign company manager, the first place to look for solutions is your nearest mirror. An army’s readiness is a reflection of the general’s character. Too many of us assume that mere workaholism sets a proper example. Every manager should realize, however, that nobody enjoys working for someone they don’t like or respect. Without a palpable sense of camaraderie, your organization will never shift into high gear. If you can’t have some fun with the troops and give them a deserved pat on the back, you’ll never really have an army (perhaps a junta). Little things mean a lot in employee relations. Demonstrate your concern by interacting with your employees in the shop or at the job site. Small gestures like stopping by with coffee or other treats for the troops show your interest in the people behind the projects. We hear a lot about "bonding" today, but no bond is more crucial than the connection between a boss and his or her employees. If you’re an aloof manager, your employees will assume (rightly or wrongly) that you don’t care about them. The most important step to becoming a better manager may simply be to stop equating authority with fear. It’s been proven time and again that positive reinforcement is the best way to motivate competent people. Thus, rewarding employee excellence is a sign company’s most certain road to success. If a person has done something especially well, shout it from the rooftop of your shop! Make sure that everyone in the company knows about it, and reward the exemplary person in a meaningful way. There’s no more serious management gaffe than failing to acknowledge an excellent effort, while heaping criticism on every error. This is the "what have you done for me lately" school of management, detested by employees everywhere. Pep-talks certainly have their place, but one genuine example of the type of performance your company values is more powerful than any sermon. You needn’t fret about the effect that all this "employee-hugging" will have on your bottom line. Once you’ve got an army of good soldiers who respect their boss, you’ll command the most productive work force possible. When an employee asks for a raise, don’t forget that some people aren’t easy to replace. One top-producer might actually be worth more to your company than two mediocre workers. You won’t be able to make an accurate evaluation, however, if you’re not in tune with the various ways that each person contributes to your company’s goals. Once you’ve created an emulative ethic of achievement in your organization, your company will blow away its competition. The principal challenge is to relate more positively and effectively to your work force. This won’t just make you more successful at the bank — you’ll also be much happier when you come to work, because you’ll be among friends.