Performance Counts

Fourth-quarter business issues are starting to take center stage. Some of you are looking back on 2003 and wondering what you can expect from 2004. Whatever your goals and dreams, reaching them will be contingent upon the performance of your staff. These may include the people you too quickly hired and now must cultivate to make sure that they — and you — are successful.

While new legislative issues and changes in reimbursement may be on the forefront, the real success of your business will be based upon the personalities and motivation of those you employ.

Hire the Attitude

For months you may have searched for just the right salesperson, customer service representative, respiratory therapist or delivery technician. Finally, you think you have found the right employee with the skills, personality and experience you were looking for. You are ready to present him or her with the opportunity to work for the best home care company in the community. I can assure you that making the offer will be the easy part. Determing whether you really are hiring the right person is another matter.

You should question whether the new employee's past home care experience will make him or her more successful, or whether you should hire someone with no experience but with tremendous motivation to succeed.

Take my advice: Hire the attitude. Hire the sizzle. Hire the energy. Hire someone who wants to be successful and who desires to grow professionally. Sam Walton often made the comment that you can hire people with the right attitude and teach them to sell, but you cannot give someone with great sales skills the right attitude.

The Performance Appraisal

Once you make the right hiring decision, you must make sure the relationship between you and your employee remains productive and valuable.

Before we discuss how, I think I'd better be honest and explain that I am writing this article for selfish reasons. I wanted to write about something that I don't think I ever did well, and that I knew was an area where I needed improvement — I wish I had read about some of these strategies 20 years ago. But it's not too late for you, and I hope this article will help you to take some of the stress away from what can be a difficult task — delivering the often dreaded and stressful performance appraisal.

The end of the year is a great time to complete performance evaluations for all employees. Many companies complete evaluations on the anniversary of employment, although I always recommend moving these evaluations to the end of the year.