By Libby Anderson

Employee turnover is a fact of life if you are a business

owner. And, on the average, this fact of life can cost you anywhere from $3,500

to $10,000 per turnover. Some experts even say that it can cost up to half of

an employee’s annual salary.

Where do these costs come from? Other than the tangible fees

for running a classified ad, possible placement fees, benefits, and relocation

expenses (if applicable), there are a number of intangible cost factors:

A decline in employee morale and productivity.

Disgruntled customers not getting the service expected and

going elsewhere.

Manpower hours invested in the interviewing, reference

checking, drug testing, and administrative processing of applicants or new

employees.

Manpower hours invested in training the new employees.

However, turnover expenses can be avoided or reduced if you

select the right applicant for the position. Of course, employee selection

success doesn’t always come naturally. Well-intentioned employers can be duped

by applicants who may know all the right things to say in an interview, but

don’t have the skills to do the job. But, by learning a few behavioral

interviewing techniques, you can gain added insight into how an applicant will

perform on the job.

Traditional approaches to interviewing — asking open-ended

questions, relying on a “gut instinct,” and asking the who, what, why, when,

and where questions — sometimes don’t get you all the information you need.

Responses to these questions can come out vague, future-oriented, and entirely subjective.

Behavioral-based questions follow the psychological premise that past behavior

predicts future performance. In other words, if an applicant has done something

in the past, he is likely to do it again in the future.

Behavioral-based interviews involve questions that deal with

specifics about an applicant’s work performance. When you know how an applicant

has behaved in the past, you can determine if you want that behavior in your

workplace. As a bonus, behavioral interviewing reduces liability because it

involves questions that are strictly related to workplace behavior.

You begin the behavioral-interviewing process by determining

the performance criteria for the job you wish to fill. One easy way is to use a

job description. If you don’t use job descriptions, make a list of the things

that you feel are essential to effectively performing the job. For example, a

customer service representative position might involve the following

job-related criteria:

Energy: Consistently maintains high productivity or activity

level.

Oral Communication Skills: Effective non-verbal and verbal

expression.

Tolerance for Stress: Stability of performance under

pressure.

Adaptability: Maintains effectiveness in varying situations.

Positive Customer Service Orientation: Proactively makes

efforts to listen to and understand the customer, anticipates customer needs

and gives high priority to customer satisfaction.

Team Player Attitude: Works effectively and willingly with

all team members.

Recognizing that every position has different criteria, some

other samples of criteria that can be used are: initiative, judgement,

professionalism, tenacity, written communication skills, sales ability,

practical learning, safety awareness, quality orientation, attention to detail,

decisiveness, problem solving, and goal setting.

Once you have determined your criteria for effective job

performance, the next step is to design questions that will give you the

information you need to decide if the person you are interviewing will meet the

criteria for the position. Remember, what you are looking for are answers that

relate to specific work performance from previous experience because they serve

as predictors of how the applicant will perform in your work environment.

Sample questions include:

Energy: Tell me about a time when you had to work at a fast

pace for a long period of time. What kind of work did you do? What did you do

to maintain that pace?

Oral Communication Skills: Can you tell me about a time when

you had difficulty communicating with a customer and what you did to overcome

that challenge? What was the outcome of that adjustment?

Tolerance for Stress: Describe for me a situation in which

you were faced with a large amount of customer requests at one time. What did

you do and what was the result?

The key to designing your behavioral based questions is to

look at what you need in your business and business environment and ask a

question that will tell you if this person has been in a similar situation.

Behavioral interviewing does have its challenges. Most

applicants are not used to giving specific examples and will need some

coaching. Nevertheless, it’s worth it. Blanket statements, such as “I’m a

people person,” don’t fit into this method. Instead of accepting an applicant’s

word when he says he’s a people person, you can ask him for a specific example

of when he was motivated by working with people.

Behavioral interviewing does not replace traditional

interview questions that you will need to ask to get clarification about

experience, education, and background. Rather it enhances your interviewing and

will give you examples of a person’s work-related behavior patterns. Save

yourself turnover dollars, time, and effort by employing these techniques and

you increase your chance to experience selection success.

Libby Anderson is a Human Resource consultant and trainer.

She can be reached via e-mail at edahrsvcs@aol.com.