Keep Your Business From Doing Risky Business

There are a lot of things that a business has to think of to avoid "risky business". One of them is facing & dealing with the EEOC (EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION). Many companies do not want to face an EEOC complaint. So company managers & owners should treat everyone fairly in order to reduce the chance of having a complaint filed against you and your company. You are not immune to having complaints filed against you but you can lessen the chance. If specific measurements are not in place and applied equally, a company is open to potential exposure and a "risky business" situation.

How do you minimize some of your exposure to charges of "unfair treatment"? Begin by objectively positioning each and every job, using a comprehensive position description.

A solid, up-to-date description is essential for all positions. It is critical that each and every job description be clearly and objectively written so that all parties understand. Also, so no one can justify major differences of opinion or make accusations that you have treated people differently. You will be measuring specific items, and everyone will be measured the same way.

The major elements of any position description should include these items:

reports toprimary duties and responsibilities success behaviors and attitudes soft-skill competencies performance measurementsexperience, education and special considerations

Each of these factors measure success in the job. Make sure that all employees are measured against these expectations--irrespective of race, gender, etc....

Managers should began to outline the primary duties and responsibilities for their areas of responsibility, that's the easy part.Then a manager could have a rough outline of "what" each job entails. An example: "Sell to existing clients. Develop new relationships."

A sometimes a difficult part of the process can be in outlining specific behaviors, attitudes and soft-skill competencies for each position. Each participant should be asked to complete an objective questionnaire that measures these critical factors. Once everyone sees the results of the input, it can be easy to add the "how" factors to the job descriptions, along with the underlying, measurable attitudes/ values that would enhance success. Managers will be able to prioritize and add several soft-skill competencies to the descriptions.

Through this process, managers may discover their relief, that they could objectively measure success in every job. They will now have methods for measuring each one of the identified success factors against the same standard.

Performance measurements may be equally difficult to develop. Some may have never considered adding this element to a position description. Management may end up in agreement on several specific, measurable performance objectives. Here is one example: "Achieves or exceeds all daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual sales objectives within an assigned sales territory."

With the toughest part of the work done, the next step is to define the specific types of experiences and education each position requires. Managers may discovered that if they have some general requirements for experience and education, they would actually broaden the base of possible candidates and could begin to think about including a wider variety of candidates for the job.

Make the final element "Special Considerations." For some jobs, this can be simple: "Ability to travel as needed." Sometimes managers hire salespeople who can not or will not travel.

To avoid this,give each person in a sales position a clear understanding of the jobs requirements. Better-qualified employees can be hired; performance ratings are up; employee discipline is down. Everyone is being measured against the same standard.

Risky business? Some managers may not think so. By doing this, a manager can minimized the risk to their business. Then they will be measuring all aspects of a persons performance fairly and consistently against specific, measurable expectations.

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