Screen Applicants for Knowledge & Safety

Episode 33

 

Ray

Joel, we’re back, and I understand we’re talking about skills versus technical skills. I am curious. What you got?

 

Joel

This is funny because when you hear people say tech skills, you’re thinking…

 

Ray

I’m not thinking janitorial. I have to be honest with you.

 

Joel

I’m sure. And it’s not even computer-related in this case. Skills versus tech skills. This is where people come in and they apply for a job and you have an opening, say, in your projects division. And they tell you, “Oh, I’ve got all kinds of skills”. And they check all the… “I strip floors, I shampoo carpets”, and Oh, wow, this person knows how to do all that. Great, because we don’t have somebody that has a lot of that going on. So, we’ll just hire them. Well, they start the job, and you realize two minutes into the job that they have no skills, or they were never trained properly. And that’s where the tech skills come in. A good HR department is going to understand every position within a company, and they’re going to understand the skills that are truly required. So, if you are looking for a floor care technician, and they’re telling you that they strip and wax floors, so let’s start right there, stripping wax. We don’t strip and wax floors anymore. It’s called strip and refinish. But clients call it wax, and that’s another podcast.

 

Ray

Okay, but you’re not interviewing clients. You’re interviewing (for) frontline employees.

 

Joel

But people call it stripping wax, and it’s strip and refinish because we work with polymer finishes. We do not work with wax. So that’s one of the first tests with somebody. Do they actually know what they’re talking about? And then when you ask them to tell you how they go about stripping out a floor they say, “Well, I use a black pad”. Great. Well, what do you use the black pad on? “Well, I use it on a machine that I kinda swing back and forth”. Okay, I guess I can see. Yep, a black pad is a stripping pad. Yep, a machine that gets side to side is a conventional four machine. This person doesn’t have enough tech savvy already in my mind, because they don’t know the names of the materials and the equipment that they use.

 

Ray

So, they may have done the job, but someone actually set them up. They were not self-guided?

 

Joel

They could have watched something on YouTube.

 

Ray

Oh, YouTube. Okay.

 

Joel

But you continue, It says, okay, they maybe know what they’re doing. So what’s next? “Well, I just pour the stripping chemical down on the floor and I run the machine through it”. That’s not how it’s done. You don’t “glug” it. You measure it because stripping has a way that has to be done. You put a stripping chemical into water that creates a stripping solution. And that solution then gets placed down on a floor. That solution has to set for a set amount of time. You don’t start with the machine because there are components that happen when you’re going to strip that have to happen. And you can ask them, what are those? What are the four different things that you have to have happen in order to strip a floor? And the person is going to look at you, like you got eight heads and not understand that they don’t have the technical skills to do the job. And that’s what I’m talking about, is people may have done it other places or seen it on YouTube and have tried to do it, but they don’t have the real technical skills to do the job.

 

Joel

So, you hire a person without those technical skills, you send them on a job. Some companies will say, “Oh, this person knows what they’re doing”, and just set them off on their own. (It sounds like a disaster.) A disaster can strike. That’s where I’m coming from, is making sure that the people do really have the right technical skills. How do you know that they have that? Asked to see their certifications. And the ISSA has a great training program that’s on best practices. They have a great advanced floor care division, which is testing. All the testing people have to pass with an 80 % or higher. Therefore, they have a competency level. They know that you don’t wax the baseboards or put finish on the baseboards because that’s not a best practice. People who do that are ruining the client’s facility. And yet people say, “Oh, but it makes it look so much nicer because they’re shiny”. Not everything is supposed to shine. By asking and understanding, you can tell if a person really does have the right skills to come work for you because you’ll have to break all the old habits.

 

Ray

But can I ask a follow-up question on that? (Absolutely.) For those owners who are in need of employees, They’ve expanded beyond the point that them and maybe one or two other team members. We can’t get the job done. In order for us to grow, we need to bring more folks on. They don’t have experience doing that job, or they don’t have experience interviewing for that job. What should they do?

 

Joel

They should look for somebody, a consultant maybe in the marketplace that can come out and help them, get them the training that they need. Somebody like myself. I’ll travel to different locations throughout the United States to help get divisions set up like that. I have for several companies over the years and take that time to really train and develop individuals. One of my favorite clients I worked with was down in North Carolina and worked with her entire team and helped to get them all up and going and even how to properly run the conventional four machines, which three out of the five people had never even touched prior to that training.

 

Ray

I think I’ve actually seen pics on that. (Oh, we had a blast). Yeah, you look good, bud. All right, Joel, thank you. Another great topic, and I really point you one for those in environmental services and small business owners. Thank you. (You’re welcome.)