Put weight on attitude. No. 1, for me, is attitude. Absolutely attitude is No. 1 for me because if the person has the right attitude, they’ll be successful.
I first look at their attitude, and then their skill set would come in second to me.
I’m not one who believes you have to have a four-year college education to be the best bookkeeper for a company. I don’t hold everybody to that standard because we have people here that never went to college that I wouldn’t trade for somebody with a doctorate.
I don’t think that has enough of an effect on a person’s abilities to discount them as a quality employee.
Look for person/position mismatches. I look for efficiency in that position. Usually that will jump out at you.
When you look at everything, all aspects of the business, you can see where the weak spots are. Maybe the weak spots are in bookkeeping because credits are not being issued properly, whether they’re given too many credits or not enough credits, tickets aren’t being processed correctly.
Usually the inefficiencies jump out at me first. It’s like a red flag. Then I say, ‘OK, what’s going on here.’ Then I delve a little deeper in there.
Leave out personal convictions. You have to set feelings aside. I’m the nicest guy in the world and I want everybody to love me, especially my employees, but you have to set the feelings aside.
If you have a person that’s been working for you for 10 years but they’re the wrong person in that job for whatever reason — maybe they have a bad attitude, maybe they don’t work well with others — you have to set your emotions aside.
‘Oh, they’ve been here 10 years, just deal with it.’ I don’t believe in that. I don’t believe in telling my other employees, ‘I know they’re difficult to work with. … I know they have a bad attitude, just deal with it — they’ve been here forever.’
When I say assess every position individually that’s what I’m talking about. Do I have the best person in that chair that I could possibly have? If not, then that position is a work in progress. That’s how I view it.
How to reach: Arrowhead Building Supply Inc., (636) 970-1976 or www.arrowheadbuildingsupply.com