I found it important to clarify for employees what "deal-breaker" behavior was at my company. These are the things I insisted would not be tolerated and would lead to immediate or ultimate termination, depending on the nature of the infraction of these hard and fast rules. Here are the behaviors I would not tolerate:

• 1. Gossip. Rumors can be incredibly disruptive to a company. A lack of information can get rumors started, and frank explanations can usually stop them. However, some employees thrive on the admiration of others when they seem to be "in the know." Define gossip as clearly as you can and tell employees what you expect them to do when they hear it. First and foremost, that you don't repeat it. Along the same lines of gossip, remind employees that all e-mail sent or received on company computers is considered company business and not private correspondence.
  
  
• 2. Violence or threatening or abusive behavior. Termination should be immediate for any employee who engages in any form of violent or abusive behavior. Workplace violence includes threatened or actual abuse and can be verbal or physical. These behaviors only escalate with time and are never excusable.
  
  Any employees involved in workplace violence should leave the workplace immediately and be placed on a paid leave of absence for a few days while you investigate the situation and consult with your attorney. Don't assume this couldn't happen in your company - it's estimated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) that two million Americans are victims of workplace violence annually.
  
  
• 3. Dishonesty and theft. The term theft can include the theft of time, office supplies, and the use of office equipment for personal projects. Set standards for what is acceptable use of company assets. Security experts say as many as 30 percent of workers steal, resulting in an estimated loss of $50 billion a year from U.S. companies and contributing to as many as one-third of business bankruptcies.
  
  As for dishonesty, I have a zero-tolerance approach. I dismissed members of my accounting staff for what may seem to be petty reasons: one for using $5 of petty cash as personal lunch money, another for telling me he was home sick when he was out of state on a long weekend vacation. If key staff members are not honest with you about small things, how can you be sure they will tell the truth "when it counts?"
  
  
• 4. Substance abuse. Substance abuse is more rampant than most employers know. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that from 6% to 11% of adults are substance abusers. Substance abuse costs U.S. employers an estimated $100 billion a year. Call your attorney to make certain you follow the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements. Illegal drugs are expensive and have led financially desperate employees to commit fraud. They have also been implicated in violent behavior in the workplace.
  
  Commit to setting standards in your workplace and you will find a calmer atmosphere, less turnover, and more attention to productivity, growth, and profitability.
  
  

Employee performance reviews are one of the most dreaded tasks by most managers. It is hard to win here - you can never say enough good things, and one word of criticism is generally the only thing they will remember.

Taking the easy way out and just documenting the positive will cause you a lot of trouble if you ever need to fire the employee.

The only way this ever gets better is with a lot of practice, and a pretty thick skin. Think about it this way: a bit of feedback that no one else has the guts to give a poor performer might turn around their whole career. Deliver the negative - you have to - but make sure the employee knows there are things they can do about it. For more effective performance reviews, prepare at the time of hire by giving all employees copies of the review forms you use in their orientation packet. An employee who knows how she will be reviewed will direct his behavior accordingly from the beginning of his employment and will probably do all she can to be sure he has good reviews.

In fact, an employee should have copies of all survey and review material that he will encounter over the course of his employment. The perception is what you measure is what you care about. Give a description of how often you use each evaluation tool and how. This is particularly important if your company does 360 degree performance reviews. The purpose of reviews is not to trap employees, but to give them the tools to do their best for the company. Accordingly, your review forms should be created very carefully and should cover actions specific to his skills and responsibilities as well as his people skills with peers and subordinates.

I always do reviews in two parts. The first part is for the employee to fill out two weeks ahead of the actual review meeting. It asks questions like these:

• What could I do to make your work more productive?
• What equipment or training do you need to do your best work that you don't have?
• What could the company change that would help you do your work better?
• What skills and abilities do you have that you think are underutilized?
• Any other comments or opinions you would like to express?

I have always found that getting an employee to express their feelings first not only lets them know that you really are interested in their feedback, it also often results in their letting you know what they think their weaknesses are. You don't have to be the first to bring these things up.

Most employees really want to do good work. And if you think an employee isn't really there to do good work, you shouldn't be reviewing them, you should be letting them go.

Recruiting and hiring are often done in haste, leaving the company to repent in the long run. Today, there's a reason to be concerned about negligent hiring. Negligent hiring means you and your company can be sued if one of your hires injures other employees, especially if you could have foreseen a problem but did not do a thorough check of the new employee before hiring.

The following list of five essential hiring practices establishes the minimum you should follow:

• 1. Require outside testing. Allow a competent, impartial professional interviewer to administer both paper and pencil and verbal tests. Professional testing firms can administer valid psychological tests for intelligence, stability, even determinations of addictive or dishonest personalities, as well as skills tests of important technical abilities in your workforce. I find testing often validates a suspicion I already had but wasn't yet ready to come to terms with.
  
  
• 2. Conduct a rigorous personal interview. This includes asking general attitude questions, how you would manage your boss questions, how you would manage your staff questions, questions relating to the applicant's understanding of the financial workings of a business and your department's role in the business's overall success, questions relating to the applicant's ability to set goals and his or her expectations about achieving goals, questions relating to specific skills required for the job, and general communications required by the job.
  
  
• 3. Arrange a peer group interview. This part of the process encourages applicants to speak more freely and helps determine how comfortable they will be in working with their peers. Follow up with a meeting of everyone involved in the hiring decision to determine if there is a group consensus about the applicant's suitability for work at your company.
  
  
• 4. Do a background check. Don't neglect this, even if it is an employee's cousin or your competitor's best salesperson. It's very easy to set up an account with an investigative firm online and to relatively quickly and inexpensively find out if the applicant has a criminal record or a history of DMV problems, lawsuits involving previous employers, workers' compensation claims, and so forth.
  
  
• 5. Do a reference check. You can conduct these over the phone, but they may involve a request in writing. Reference checking is less effective than it used to be, although you may still find a few people who are willing to talk. Most former employers play it safe and verify only dates of employment and salary.

Document that you took all of these steps and you've gone a long way toward protecting yourself against a charge of negligent hiring. And more importantly, you've taken the first steps toward finding an employee whom you can trust and with whom you can establish a successful employment relationship.