Position Available: Crack Heads and Felons Please Apply

Jim Moody
CSA President

One of the many enjoyable aspects of my job is serving as the head of our self-insured worker’s compensation fund. But this week, my enthusiasm has been sapped by a settlement mediation for a claim that should never have happened.

Back when things were blowing and going, one of our member companies hired a fellow without really putting too much thought into it. No interview with senior leadership. No background check. Just needed a warm body to do manual labor, and that’s exactly what they got.

Unfortunately, the new employee had some baggage. He was a three-time convicted felon. He had been a crack user for four years. He had two previous back injuries resulting in worker’s comp settlements. He failed two grades in school and never went beyond 9th grade. By his own admission, he was illiterate. Not long after he was hired (surprise, surprise), he injured his back.

The amount we’ve paid for that claim is significant, as is the settlement, but the amount is not the important issue here. What’s important is that this claim was set in stone the moment this fellow was hired. The negligence wasn’t on his part for getting injured; it was on the dealer for hiring him in the first place. How useful could this fellow have been as an employee? Did the owner really get a full day’s work for a full day’s pay? How did he affect morale on the yard? What kind of danger did he pose to other workers or the facility itself?

Admittedly, this is an extreme example (though it is no exaggeration). But I really worry about how this industry is going to hire people when the good times return. Many of you (perhaps all of you!) have spent the past year or so paring down your payroll. It’s my impression that you used the opportunity to jettison those who were slackers, unsafe workers, and generally poor employees. You’ve also lost many good folks, but the bad ones are long gone. We might say most of you have a clean slate.

I’ve had some people tell me that there are masses waiting in the wings to come back into the building supply business. I wonder if that’s really the case. The longer we go without a housing recovery (and let’s be honest, while the economy is probably going to start recovering in 2009, we aren’t going to see appreciable increases in new home starts until 2010), the more our best experienced workers get assimilated into other sectors of the economy. I fear that all the good ones have jobs and only the bad ones are ready to come back when you have jobs for them.

As a leader in your business, now is the time to think about how you will hire when new positions are available again. Just as important as the hiring is the orientation, where you have the opportunity to educate the employee about his job and the industry, give him his first taste of corporate culture, and indoctrinate him on safety.

Most of us spend far too little time thinking about these things because we are too busy. Yet, few things are more important in setting us up for success or failure.

I recently attended a seminar with Jim Collins, author of “Good to Great” and “Built to Last.” I’ve written about him before and urge you to read his books. Next week, I’ll discuss some of the things I heard Collins say as it relates to hiring.