By spending more time and resources on recruiting and selection, managers can make better matches between individuals and the organization.

• ▪ Workers can be selected for fit in the organization as well as the job. Choosing applicants who have career potential in the company decreases the likelihood that employees will exhibit performance problems later.

• ▪ Checking references and gathering background information on applicants’ work habits and character are useful preliminaries to making a job offer.

• ▪ Multiple interviews that involve diverse groups in the company can reduce biases that lead to poor hiring decisions. When women, minorities, peers, and subordinates, as well as senior people, are involved in the interviewing process, companies stand a better chance of obtaining an accurate portrait of the applicant.

• ▪ Personality tests or honesty tests can be administered to job candidates. Candidates who have profiles from the test that correlate strongly with a high propensity to commit misconduct or display dishonesty in the workplace can be deleted from consideration for a job.115

Investing in employees’ training and development now saves a company from having to deal with incompetents or workers whose skills are obsolete down the road.

• ▪ An effective orientation program communicates to new employees the values important to the organization. It also teaches employees what is expected from them as members of the organization. These insights into the company can help employees manage their own behavior better. FedEx, for instance, has an extensive orientation program to communicate company values to employees.116

• ▪ Training programs for new employees can reduce skill gaps and improve competencies.

• ▪ Retraining programs can be used for continuing employees whose skills have become obsolete. For example, employees may need periodic retraining on word processing software as the technology changes and more powerful programs become available.

• ▪ Training supervisors to coach and provide feedback to their subordinates encourages supervisors to intervene early in problem situations with counseling rather than discipline.

• ▪ Career ladders can be developed to give employees incentives to develop a long-term commitment to the organization’s goals. When employees know that the organization has a long-term use for their contributions, they are more likely to engage in acts of good citizenship with their coworkers and customers.

Jobs, job families, and organizational units can be designed to motivate and challenge employees. Highly motivated workers seldom need to be disciplined for inadequate performance.

• ▪ Jobs should be designed to use the best talents of each employee. It may be necessary to build some flexibility into job designs to put an employee’s strengths to best use. One way companies are creating greater job flexibility is through job banding. Discussed in Chapter 10, t his system replaces traditional narrowly defined job descriptions with broader categories, or bands, of related jobs. By putting greater variety into jobs, job banding makes it less likely that employees will feel so underchallenged or bored that they start avoiding work through absences or tardiness. Job banding has been implemented successfully by companies such as Aetna, General Electric, and Harley Davidson.117

• ▪ Job descriptions and work plans should be developed to communicate effectively to employees the performance standards to which they will be held accountable.

Many performance problems can be avoided by designing effective performance appraisal systems. An effective performance appraisal system lets people know what is expected of them, how well they are meeting those expectations, and what they can do to improve on their weaknesses.

• ▪ The performance appraisal criteria should set reasonable standards that employees understand and have some control over.

• ▪ Supervisors should be encouraged to provide continuous feedback to subordinates. Many problems can be avoided with early interventions.

• ▪ Performance evaluations for supervisors should place strong emphasis on their effectiveness at providing feedback and developing their subordinates.

• ▪ Employee appraisals should be documented properly to protect employers against wrongful discharge or discrimination suits.

• ▪ The performance appraisal criteria should measure employee behaviors in addition to performance outcomes so that employees receive feedback on the methods they use to achieve their expected performance goals. This behavioral feedback enables managers to correct employees who choose inappropriate and undesirable means to reach their objectives.118

Employees who believe that rewards are allocated unfairly (perhaps on the basis of favoritism) are likely to lose respect for the organization. Worse, employees who believe that pay policies do not recognize the value of their contributions are more likely to withhold future contributions.

• ▪ Pay policies should be perceived as fair by all employees. Employees deserve rewards for their contributions. It is important to explain to them the procedures used to establish their compensation level.

• ▪ An appeal mechanism that gives employees the right to challenge a pay decision should be established. Employees who can voice their frustration with a pay decision through a legitimate channel are less likely to engage in angry exchanges with supervisors, coworkers, or customers.