hello my name is Gary Shotton and I’m here as a part of Inspiring Better Business and we hope that these lessons are helpful to you we believe that we’re speaking things that are truthful in any culture any language over any time period we’re not talking about just being successful if you leave live in the developed nation we’re talking about the laws that will work anywhere and as a part of our program we actually initiate calls to small groups of business people men and women in developing nations happens to be primarily East Africa at this point but we’re expanding to other places we do help people locally also but that’s where we ask these people in these groups to respond to us with some real questions and we feel like those real questions are probably being asked by others and so one of those questions was hiring and firing employees how do we deal with that that’s a legitimate question if you’re gonna have employees you want to be able to do that and I have experienced some some of really firsthand my first business that I really owned started with just myself and a helper and then over time we’ve added trucks it was a trucking business it was moving furniture and we kept track of not only the person’s name like Bob Smith and Bill Jones but we also was easier if we named them not employee number one two three and up there so over a period of 17 years we were up to over 800 different numbers we didn’t have 800 people at once we had between small but up the many times 75 people at once but that’s how many people we hired and they aren’t with us anymore my current customer a company that I own we maintain about 60 to 65 employees and there’s some come and go we have some that are very long-term employees and one that’s 30 years several that are twenty years and several that are many that are 10 years with us so we’re trying to improve on this as well how do we hire the right people though we’re hiring now and so one of the obvious is number one the better you hire the less you have to fire that’s pretty pretty pretty straightforward so let’s concentrate mostly on the hiring process and be sure that we’re doing the best we can there well in our society we have what’s called a resume and we have a lot of paper but you know people can put things on a resume resume that they put it and say well this is what I think they want to hear from me so I’m going to put that down whether it’s actually true or not and you know there gives some some information I tend to lean more towards the first discussion with a person and in discussing with that person there’s certain red flags that we watch for if there’s they come to us and say well then we say well why are you looking for a job and they say well my last boss he was just a jerk everything he did was wrong and the idid idea guess what when he leaves my place he’s going to say the same thing about me count on it and so you want to be sensitive not just what’s on paper but but can you take a look into this person and how they actually work are they going to be committed not to you personally but are they going to be committed to the job that you’ve asked them to do are they going to be an asset that’s going to well exceed the amount amount of money that you’re paying them and they’re going to be revenue bringing revenue to your company I suggest that you hire slowly and what do I mean by that occasionally we’ll be talking to somebody and they just started their business and we find out right away they hired five or six people well there’s five or six people that need a job but you don’t need them you don’t need a lot of people on those first businesses now after you’re up and running and I bought a business with 41 employees of course I need that many people but if you’re just getting started I had one person that was telling me they they already hired him a bookkeeper and then there are we have operations hold it just a second you don’t have any business yet so don’t hire anybody until you have the ability to pay them the forseeable and you might have to wear a lot of different hats do a lot of different things yourself and then first person you’re higher you’re probably going to have to ask them to take on a lot of different responsibilities and if they’re just hiring on for one job and that’s all they can do maybe that’s not the best person to hire and then when you are hiring somebody try to get a look into their work ethics are they compatible is their personality compatible with you their skillsets is one thing but are they functioning well inside your company you’re going to really need to know that as soon as possible so you can do things like hey I’m just need a job we might work into a long time full-time job but I need to just hire you part-time or for just a couple weeks we refer to our friend Wendy and more goro Tanzania where she had tasty crispy chicken and she was selling this in the college that she was going to and she didn’t really need much help but for a couple hours while it was busy and she could do the rest of the work herself that’s all she needed well guess what when she hires somebody for a couple hours part-time if that person doesn’t work out it’s pretty easy to let them go now once you hire somebody and ask them to leave their good-paying job and they work for you that you love to be a little more careful so B get as good a look at them to see how they’re going to work in your environment and and do that slowly and add people slow slowly earlier on you can tell do you work well together and are they are they alert are they on board are they thinking well sometimes you want to hire and think of hiring the person with the most experience okay we have to have a machine shop and so of course if we can hire somebody that fits our personality that also has skill sets as a machinist we’re interested but we can’t always find those people so in a way we’re looking for that personality first and when we see somebody’s teachable and they’re alert then we’re more inclined to hire them and train them from day one you get the advantage of training them like the way you want it done now we look real quick are they got a notepad we suggest bring a notepad are they asking the same question over and over which you covered last yesterday are they asking you the same question again they’re not you’re not a good fit with you and then many times you have a chance to train them ideally you have the ability to give a clear description of what you want them to do and a clear description of ability to judge that in our case you will need to do these parts within a particular time period well you can kind of make a judgement there and so if you can tell that great but early on a lot of times you’re not able to do that because they’re doing so many things I would say be very careful about hiring friends and family that’s not always a good fit you don’t hire somebody because they need a job you’ve got to hire somebody because they’re going to do the job that you need them to do and you can add a whole nother layer on there I’m not saying never do that and I know there’s a lot of family businesses but but that is not always the best go-to as friends and family but for obvious reasons and so be careful hire the best you can be careful and now let’s talk about firing somebody well nobody wants to fire somebody that’s no one’s likes to get fired but you know there’s overriding of criterias being fair but firm I’m going to give some real examples here but ideally you’re fair in communicating what you expect them to do and you’re fair in communicating if they’re not performing up to your standards you should be let them know no they should not be surprised they might act surprised but they really shouldn’t be surprised that they’ve been dismissed from employment they probably saw it coming and they they would again can act surprised so but you got to be fair and firm there’s going to be cases where there just doesn’t fit and in my opinion you don’t need to have a long explanation it’s not the time to tell them well back on this you did this and like a training time it’s probably just as simple to say you know I don’t think it’s working here it’s just not working out in the same way I don’t want them to tell me all of my mistakes that’s not a time for me to tell them hey there’s a whole long list laundry laundry laundry list of things you didn’t like about them just let them go it’s gone get on with life now there’s a couple cases I want to talk about in this process it seems inevitably that one of your most important persons the most key person now has a discipline problem maybe they’re not reporting to work on time or maybe they didn’t show up for work and you really kind of need this person it’s really pretty important so now you’re creating what I would call a double standard if Joe is really important to me I’m going to be more lenient with them that I’m with somebody else that’s not as important be careful with that and so maybe they don’t realize it or not they they could be playing a little game with you to see where can they push the button with you how far can they get before you’re going to take action again fair and firm we had this issues that somebody that you really need on the job doesn’t show up from work one day and didn’t call ahead no good excuse and the next day they come in well a little trick if you want to call it that I’ve learned is that when they don’t show up on time or they don’t show up when scheduled it gives you the latitude to not need them so somebody doesn’t come to work one day they come the next day totally appropriate to say you know you weren’t here yesterday I was able to fill that job and frankly I don’t need you today so why don’t you go on home and come back tomorrow you’re playing this same game with them they’ll they’ll pick up pretty fast that you’re disciplining them in a way that you’re telling them you ought to be here every day or at least call in or at least have a good excuse because you’re counting on them being there to fulfill the orders or if you didn’t need them you wouldn’t have them there well I hope this helps you I hope that you understand that we’re here to help you in the business affairs and we’re here to share things that we think are globally true and will stand the test of time we call them God’s laws of business and they’re going to be similar all around the world thanks for being a part of Inspiring Better Business