We’re not actually talking baseball even though the season is officially opened!
Single people make better employees…
As an agency principal, I know the frustration of finding the right people, keeping them happy and maintaining the balance in the office. Working with more than 70 members of Secured Advantage, I get the unique opportunity to see things from many different perspectives. During a recent discussion with one of our members, we stumbled upon a common thread from our experience…our best employees were some form of single.
More specifically, the best employees were divorced, single parents.
As we started working up a list of pros and cons, it was pretty simple. Most often, the single parent understands how to balance time and priorities better than those without children or those with a spouse or partner. They tend to respect the opportunity to be employed and care more about the quantity and the quality of the work they perform – because they feel they need a job…this job.
These good elements come with the “bad” of sick kids, snow days and summer schedule adjustments. All of these issues become ways to help improve the value of the job for the employee when as an employer, you recognize the need to work with them on how to tackle these challenges.
Technology…Flexibility…Transparency…
With today’s technology, forwarding phones or remoting into the server, can be easy ways to help minimize the lost productivity on a school snow day. We know that less work is often done, but the most important items are handled.
We know flexible schedules help cover for school drop off and pick up or special programs and parent meetings.
We have seen how the commitment to the job grows when an understanding employer leads with transparency with the employees.
As you continue to build and grow your agency, keep these fundamentals in mind around hiring the people:
- Hire for attitude…many times the divorced single parent is looking for a place to be valued and is willing to give their best efforts to build that reality. High levels of commitment typically translate into higher levels of productivity.
- Hire for aptitude…learning new things and being capable on new tasks can often be the acquired skill of divorced single people from having to do everything on their own. They can be more capable with less resources required to help them add value to your team.
- Hire for appreciation…single wage earner homes need the income provided by the job often times more than those households with two incomes. Coming to the agency each day grateful for the opportunity to work can boost the level of service provided by your agency 10 fold.
It’s worth noting, that with any strategy, there will be exceptions to the rule. Here too our experience tells us that while there are some who don’t fit these generalized qualities of employees and may turn out to be less than what you were looking for, more often than not you will find better potential in this divorced single parent grouping than in most others.
Take a look around your agency or even reflect back on those who have been employed there in the past…many times the similar characteristics of those we were sad to lose go unnoticed.
Now that we have identified a characteristic or classification of the person you would like to hire, the next question is how to find them…that will be answered in the next installment of our email or click here to get that answer now.
Let us know if you would like to speak with any of our members. All of them have volunteered to share their story and the best practices they use to be manage their agencies.
Thanks,
Ted Rusinoff
To learn more about our story, visit www.secured-advantage.com.
You can also email me back at ted.rusinoff@secured-advantage.com, or send a note to my partner Tim Buren at tim.buren@secured-advantage.com.