Where are all the smart people?

September 29, 2006 3:33 PM

Are people in general really this stupid or am I just expecting too much?

I work in a small business in southern tennessee where I run the art department and help out in some aspects of the general business management like invoicing, customer service, etc.

We usually have a rotating cast of characters in various positions. It's hard to hire and keep people - we run at a face pace and multi-tasking is a must. Since I'm part of the core group, and I generally wind up helping training the new recruits, getting them up to speed on general procedures, how to price, how to deal with customers, how to enter new orders into the system, etc etc.

I've been here for about 3 years now (I'm original from the north) and lately my frustration level has reached new heights. It seems that the majority of people we hire have a very very hard time grasping even simple aspects of the business.

I've notice that, in general:

People have a hard time following directions. If you tell them something once, you may need to repeat it several times over the course of several days until they "get it". In one example, I have repeatedly told an employee who was tasked with printing documents to only print those that were labeled. She continued to print those without labels for on and off for about two days, even after I repeated myself.

People have a hard time reading things in detail and processing them. Just today we had an instance where a person entering a work order put "back" instead of "front" for artwork position. It clearly stated this in the order.

People don't take notes, they ask the same question more than once (sometimes within the hour) and generally have a hard time grasping concepts and tasks that I would consider to be relatively easy.

Are we just in a bad area? Is the south like that in general? Or do other people have like experiences with people they work with? Are schools not teaching common sense anymore?

Just honestly curious.

posted by finitejest to work & money (57 comments total)

I know a company having exactly the same problem - and the reason is that they're not paying enough to attract higher-calibre people. (Pay includes good benefits). What is the compensation like?
posted by -harlequin- at 3:43 PM on September 29, 2006

I'm not from there, but I would imagine it has to do with the calibre of people you are hiring as opposed to people just being stupid in that area.
Also, it might have something to do with that "face pace" you run at.
posted by chococat at 3:44 PM on September 29, 2006

harlequin beat me to it.
posted by chococat at 3:44 PM on September 29, 2006

A few possibilities off the top of my head:

1. People in your area are genuinely stupid (unlikely, as even in the stupidest town in the country, the distribution of IQ scores would still be pretty broad, covering the smart and stupid ends of the spectrum nicely)


2. People who are taking the types of jobs you are offering are genuinely stupid, (but that's what you get for not offering a lot of money or offering a lousy work environment, etc.)


3. People who work for you aren't particularly motivated, and aren't really paying attention (again, you may be getting what you pay for).


4. The people working for you don't have the proper background


5. You are a bad trainer. You may not be doing a good job explaining things clearly, and in a manner that makes it apparent why things are done the way they are.


6. You are not giving them enough time to learn their jobs. (you could be a bad trainer, or you may be constrained by business realities).

posted by i love cheese at 3:50 PM on September 29, 2006 [2 favorites]

If you want them to take notes, give each new employee a memo pad to put in their shirt pocket, and lead by example with your own note-taking.

I took a summer job in an industrial setting and on my first day my boss handed me a memo pad, saying something along the lines of having one was a necessity to work in the powerhouse. And it was extremely useful. I wasn't taking formal notes, and most of them no one but me would have been able to decipher, but it was an essential tool.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 3:51 PM on September 29, 2006 [1 favorite]

I have 180 employees (professional and support) and we consider a 3 month orientation appropriate and necessary. Much of this includes on the job training, mentoring, supervision, etc. If some one is not experienced in the specific job we think one month to three months is a reasonable time before expecting satisfactory autonomous performance. That is why minimizing turnover is so important. You will have to make the judgement as to whether the folks you work with are below par or your expectations are unrealistic. The only thing I am consistently impressed with is the difficulty many have with their writing skills.
posted by rmhsinc at 3:51 PM on September 29, 2006

1. Schools don't teach common sense. They never have.

2. I'd say that you've got some of the tendencies you describe, especially not reading things "in detail." Hence your "face pace" and "I've notice..." and "I'm original from the north."
posted by LGCNo6 at 3:51 PM on September 29, 2006 [2 favorites]

Are people that stupid? Maybe, but you might also be expecting too much. I work in a fast paced environment that requires multi-tasking. But here's the thing, the pace gets incrementally faster month by month. A rush job that would have taken 24 hours five years ago is now expected in 4 hours. That time difference isn't entirely made up by technological advances - corners have to be cut. Luckily in my industry it's often easier and less expensive to make ten mistakes so long as I make deadline.

You may have become acclimated to the pace over the past three years. The n00bs you're training don't have this benefit, especially if they haven't had previous experience in your industry.
posted by lekvar at 3:57 PM on September 29, 2006

Having worked in both the north and the south, I can definitely say that this has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Along the lines of what LGCNo6 said, common sense is the issue.
I don't think schools CAN teach common sense these days, not without the fear of some type of lawsuit arising. Most public education seems (to me) to be more "cover your ass" than "let's learn 'em good".
posted by zerokey at 4:01 PM on September 29, 2006

A few things come to mind:

-- I'm a really smart guy, but my temporary memory is limited. If I ask you directions, and you say, "turn right at the next light, then go down two blocks, then turn left," I will have already forgotten the "turn right" part. Many people are less impaired than I, but no one's temporary memory can store very much.

Yet people think they can remember more than they can. And many bosses expect other people to remember more than is humanly possible.

So employees need to understand their mental limitations and TAKE NOTES. And bosses need to STOP giving more than two or three directions to people who are not taking notes.

Unless I'm sure that the person I'm talking to has an extraordinary memory, I preface my instructions by saying, "There are a bunch of steps involved, so you'll need to take notes." And I wait for them to get out pens and paper.

If I see that someone is not taking notes -- unless I know I'm talking to SuperBrain -- I stop after a couple of instructions. There's no point going on; I know they won't remember any more. Pretty soon, people get used to this "odd" behavior and start taking notes, if for no other reason than to humor me.

-- Emails and memos should contain a maximum of ONE instruction.

If you write, "The party is at 7pm. Please bring cookies." You'll get a ton of people showing up at 7 with donuts. Or you'll get a ton of people showing up with cookies -- but at 11:45.

This is just the people relate to email. They skimmed. Also, there's that temp memory thing again. It's rare for people to take notes when the get an email (or print it out and refer to it later). They try to remember it. And, of course, they don't remember much.

If I need someone to do three things, unless he has a history of being really organized, I will send him three separate emails.

-- Many adults ARE "stupid" in the sense that, once they leave school, they find a niche in which they aren't forced to learn new things. Eventually, through lack of brain exercise, they forget how to learn new things.

I'm a technical trainer, and I continually meet people who blame technology for their ineptness with the simplest new task. But once I work with them for a while, I realize that their problem has nothing to do with technology. Rather, it just so happens that rapid changes in technology are the only aspects of their lives in which they need to learn anything new. And so they suck at it.

But as with other "muscles", exercise can revive the brain. You need to set the bar really high, give people some help meeting it, and then expect them to meet it.
posted by grumblebee at 4:06 PM on September 29, 2006 [11 favorites]

Try and see it from their perspective. None of your directions may be complicated by themselves, but when you start at a new job there are always TONS of new directions to remember.

It's possible that you are smarter than these people to a decent degree. It's also possible (at the same time) that these people would be smart enough to do their jobs if you dropped the "Gosh, what an idiot!" mentality.
posted by dagnyscott at 4:16 PM on September 29, 2006

Having lived North, South, East, and West, I don't think it's a regional thing at all. I've seen good employees and bad employees all over.

One thing I noticed is that your profile seems to indicate a zip code in a smallish town. Perhaps the pool of applicants is smaller than it would be in, say, Nashville or Memphis or Chattanooga? Or perhaps many of the smarter local people are making the commute to a metro area to seek more challenging and better-paying jobs, instead of working right where you are? This happens frequently here in TX.
posted by Robert Angelo at 4:23 PM on September 29, 2006

It's called the "beginner's mind." All things carry the same degree of importance. So your instructions to "copy only the labeled items" carries the same weight in memory as "you eat lunch at 11:45." Once the repetetive portions of the job are learned (memorized) then more details are incrementally added.
Trully understanding a job's requirements takes time. Once you scale back your expectations of speed you will find anyone who sticks around will be as good as you are at the job in about 2 YEARS.
Enjoy.
posted by ptm at 4:29 PM on September 29, 2006

Or perhaps many of the smarter local people are making the commute to a metro area to seek more challenging and better-paying jobs, instead of working right where you are?

That was definitely the case in the small town where I lived for several years. Either that, or they got the hell out of Podunk as soon as they got the chance.
posted by MrMoonPie at 4:31 PM on September 29, 2006

You could try presenting the same information in different ways...aurally, visually, giving written instructions, and actually doing the process with them. This will improve the odds that the employees will learn what you are trying to teach. I too would have trouble remembering information you tell me, not because I am "stupid", but because my dominant learning style is visual.

I respectfully suggest that your mental model of these employees as "stupid" is contributing to your problem.
posted by Pigpen at 4:34 PM on September 29, 2006 [1 favorite]

Yeah, if I started a new job and someone spewed 100 things at me I wouldn't remember a quarter of them. Hand me a list of 100 things and give me time to read it, though, and I'm golden. Some folks need to be led through each of the 100 tasks once, and they never need to be reminded again. Different people learn differently.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 4:40 PM on September 29, 2006

I work in "the North" -- and in my experience, many people think that they're much more competent than they present themselves to be. It's not reasonable to expect anyone, regardless of intelligence, to remember every detail, especially when they don't yet have a first hand feel for their job, their workplace, and their place in it. However, despite this, many people think that they're above taking notes.

These people, inevitably, don't follow every direction, and will come back to you to ask for instruction on a task that you've already clearly gone over with them, in detail. What makes it all the more infuriating (as I'm sure you've experienced) is that they will oftentimes act as if this is the first time they've heard it. And what makes it worse is when they stubbornly refuse to write it down, yet again -- and you know they'll probably be back.

I think people are busy. And I think that many people think that they're too good for their jobs, or that they're the smartest ones around. I also know that I'm often worried that I'm not explaining something well -- that, although I understand what I'm saying (because I understand the process/concept), it doesn't always translate well. I think that the suggestions above about requiring that trainees take notes is a good one. As well, if it's at all possible, perhaps write up training material that at least 2 or 3 people in your department get to edit before it's given to trainees.

Also: yes, you may be expecting too much. As they say, 50% of everyone is below average.
posted by penchant at 4:45 PM on September 29, 2006

We have had some of the same issues where I work - a small trade association with a really fast pace, a ton of work, and not enough time in the day to teach anyone things more than once. My "core" co-workers and I used to have this exact conversation at least once or twice a year...

I think harlequin is correct that compensation is a very important part of the equation. When my non-profit needs to fill positions, the people we really want to hire are generally not willing to work at a non-profit salary (super low, particularly for the D.C. area), even with very good benefits. It's a matter of finding the one right person, which is very hard and takes time.

Two years ago - after letting the third person go from one key position - we decided to take a real good look at our recruiting process, because we were obviously falling short somewhere when it came to identifying the right kinds of people to hire.

What we ended up doing was to continue using resume-type qualifications, but to add a test for the kinds of intangibles that we felt were just as important - common sense, an eye for detail, a short learning curve, and an ability to figure things out on your own. Those are the kinds of things that can't really be taught in schools, and didn't show up in the normal interviewing process.

Here is what we currently do, and this has worked out great for us:

Narrow down the field to about 10-12 people with the basic qualifications
Give a two hour "test" of simple office tasks designed to give us an idea of how the applicants think and operate.
The test includes things like
- Organizing a stack of paperwork into logical groupings, and explaining those groupings (tells you a little about how they think)
- Proofreading a letter and a list of contact information, using the standards they are given (are they detail oriented, and can they follow very specific instructions?)
-Sit them in front of a computer equipped with a keylogger and asking them to do a simple mail merge or other similar task that they have never done before. (Can they figure things out by themselves? What resources do they use to figure out how to do it? Did they read the Word manual?)
- Give them the basis for one of our projects, and ask them to write up how they would do it. (How do they think?)

It might seem either trivial, or like too much work, but we have really been able to separate the right kinds of people from the ones who look good on paper but didn't do so well in the very specific environment in my office.
posted by gemmy at 4:48 PM on September 29, 2006 [3 favorites]

Are schools not teaching common sense anymore?

Well, some wise guy once said "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." Given the unanswerable nature of the question, I don't think it's out of line to link to this fine example of one teacher doing his part to educate the youth of 1994. "Every other student in class accepted my lesson without argument ..." I remember similar incidents from my own school lessons, though none quite so extreme as that.
posted by sfenders at 4:55 PM on September 29, 2006

You know, someone transposing "back" for "front" IS thinking. Computers process: I wouldn't expect a computer to make that kind of error. Perhaps this person was interrupted by a ringing phone or distracted by a discussion in a neighboring cubicle.

As well, grasping the scope of any job takes time. There's often so much implied in a basic description of a job that it takes a bit of time to understand how all of the components fit together.

Perhaps your co-workers' basic alienation from the fruits of their labor, a lack of intrinsic satisfaction from work, or the overwhelming pace are contributing factors as well.
posted by action man bow-tie at 5:04 PM on September 29, 2006

You're not writing out what you want. Only ask them to take notes for ad hoc and novel instructions. For anything else, give them a properly tabbed-and-indexed manual of operations. During down-time or when they're unsure they can consult it.

Theey may not be consulting you when they're unsure, and just picking an alternative (e.g, print this unlabelled thing or not), because you seem to them irritated at their questions or brusque in your answers -- which also may be a cultural norrms, Northern/Siouthern differnce thing. Or you may just be flooding them with too much information.

In eiither case, a manual they can consult fixes a most of this.
posted by orthogonality at 5:09 PM on September 29, 2006 [3 favorites]

Another possibility is that you may be training the new employees in a manner that is not consistent with their learning styles. If you don't know anything about learning styles, you should look into them -- especially if you do a lot of training. When I train a volunteer or a staff member on one specific task, I always start by asking what their learning style is and then alter my training to fit their style; what works and is obviously clear to me, a visual learning, may not be clear to a tactile learner.
posted by rhapsodie at 5:21 PM on September 29, 2006

If you have a taste for the most dire of possibilities, as I frequently do, consider the following from journalist Dan Olmsted's latest article in his Age of Autism series, which I found at ScienceDaily:

"What is the real performance crisis at CDC? ... CDC is failing in its most critical public mission. ... Speak to any school administrator, group of families or front line care providers and ask them what the state of health of America's children is today. What do you think you'll hear? I submit you would hear that we have the sickest generation of children that any of us have ever seen.

"But the sickness is not coming from the roster of infectious diseases that all of you are programmed to consider the enemy. Rather, they are a long list of chronic, insidious but devastating conditions that are sapping the services system and turning schools and summer camps into medical distribution centers. Asthma, diabetes, ADD, ADHD, autism, PDD, obesity, life threatening food allergies, and the list goes on. Children and families are in crisis in large numbers."

He is quoting an "outsider" who posted on a "CDC message blog." I tried to find the blog, but I was not successful.

If anything like this is true, it would certainly explain your observation.
posted by jamjam at 5:21 PM on September 29, 2006

gemmy makes some very applicable points above. Interviewing very selectively is the only way you can keep from drowning in today's economy. Basic skills such as reading are woefully in short supply, according to the National Institute for Literacy:

'By age 17, only about 1 in 17 seventeen year olds can read and gain information from specialized text, for example the science section in the local newspaper. This includes:

* 1 in 12 White 17 year olds,
* 1 in 50 Latino 17 year olds, and
* 1 in 100 African American 17 year olds.'

Good luck with handing people manuals and notepads. You absolutely have to formally test reading and writing skills, including comprehension, spelling, and grammar, to get people to whom written communications are meaningful.

Too many people rely on pen and paper to substitute for memory and observation. In contrast to what others have written above, I look for people who listen and observe intently, and do not try to take notes. People who listen actively, and observe intently do not have short term memory issues. One technique I find invaluable is: I ask them questions about what I've just said, or what others said immediately before I ask the question, and see what they can playback. People who can't consistently repeat 3 of 4 points they heard within the last 2 minutes, won't ever, and they should look for opportunities not dependent on verbal communication.

It is worth digging through a pile of applicants for people you want as employees. I suspect you feel that with your high turnover, it isn't worth your time to invest much in the hiring process, but this really does become a self perpetuating situation. If you add elements of formal testing to your interview and reference checking processes, and commit to going through an interview pool at least twice as large as you do on average now, you will improve your workforce. And with an improved workforce, your employee's job satisfaction will improve and your turnover will plummet.
posted by paulsc at 5:49 PM on September 29, 2006

You need to ditch the dumb Southern bumpkin bit. That's the root of your problem here. Treat people with respect and you give them a reason to respect the job and thus the environment is conducive to learning.
posted by dog food sugar at 5:49 PM on September 29, 2006

Okay, first of all I have asthma and two life-threatening food allergies and don't feel all that put-out by either condition, and certainly didn't grow up distracted or in crisis. I have never considered myself "sick," except when I have a cold, obviously.

Finitejest: Maybe your new employees think you are cute and are trying to create reasons to talk to you by doing things wrong and asking lots of questions...maybe they are too busy staring at you to possibly concentrate on their jobs...so ask not if your employees are getting stupider...but rather: Am I getting hotter?

True or not, it might make you take it all a little less seriously.
posted by Eringatang at 5:52 PM on September 29, 2006

I think there's multiple reasons (and solutions) for your experience:

Is there process documentation for the company? If you have so much employee churn, it would help to have stuff written down so they can RTFM (without you verbally communicating to every individual). Documentation also ensures that you're not subtlely changing directions and confusing people. I've found that a simple flowchart can do wonders.

You are running the art department and are thus the expert; the new people are, well, new. You may be explaining what you want but inadvertantly skipping some steps because they seem so obvious to you. I used to be awful at explaining anything; I would look at a problem, see the logical solution, and say, "OK, we need to do X," without outlining the preliminary 100 steps from which I came to the decision (I remember on a performance review, one manager said I was not "showing my work" to the team). Training people and working with tech doc writers helped immensely to slow down and outline each step (I discovered that my 5 steps are actually 50 for most people).

Do you ask people if they understand? A lot of people are intimidated to ask questions; when you're giving directions, periodically ask, "Do you see what I'm saying?" or whatever. I used to shy away from this for fear of insulting the other party, but it can work wonders.

Finally, some people simply are stupider than you are. (Some are smarter, better-looking, uglier, taller, shorter, etc.) I suggest you try to clarify your directions in writing: you may discover that you are skipping steps and, if not, it's the employee's responsibility to follow the written directions.
posted by sfkiddo at 6:32 PM on September 29, 2006

you're expecting people to think ... most people really don't like to do that, especially at work, where they believe that's the employer's responsibility ... they also like to cut corners and go through the motions ... and frankly, many people will never see a job as anything but a place they have to be for a certain amount of time to get a paycheck

there are several solutions ... dumb the jobs down or streamline them so one person isn't doing a lot of different things ... have a longer training period and supervise people more closely ... get as many people involved in the training process as possible ... be more patient ... look over your hiring proceedures and make sure that you're actually selecting the right people for the job
posted by pyramid termite at 6:39 PM on September 29, 2006

If at all possible try to move your company back to the north. It could entirely be due to the fact that tennessee is ranked 41 out of 50 for smartest state according to:

http://www.morganquitno.com/edrank05.htm

Granted these are generalities, and there are going to be examples of genius and stupidity from every state, but overall a trend is bound to become more apparent.

-Koolkat
posted by koolkat at 6:42 PM on September 29, 2006

Don't ever forget that half the people in the world are in the bottom half of intelligence. There are a lot of stupid people out there, and there are a lot of intelectually lazy people who refuse to THINK, to read the directions, to take notes or to even pay attention.

You need to attract a higher quality of applicant. Then whomover does the highering at your firm has to do a better job of screening the applicants. I would arrange for some test like a Wonderlic test to screen for aptitude and attitude.

Paying more is easy answer, but it won't solve your problems. Without proper screening you will just attract a more expensive idiot. Perhaps a little better training. Working at a fast pace or even a "face pace" should not be a problem for a properly trained and motivated person. Maybe it is the culture of the whole firm. Perhaps the way newbies are treated (with it sounds like disdain) compounds the problem.

But, I would not get my hopes up. Some folks are too stupid to RTFD and will always screw up.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:09 PM on September 29, 2006

Two things: it seems like you're expecting people to catch on immediately to tasks you realistically developed over a long period of time. Now it might not seem complicated now but invoicing is a very. complicated. thing. Add in multitasking and you're probably throwing a lot of new info (that is totally mundane and ignoreable to you) out there.

Second: manuals, kind of suck (stupid people especially don't even know where to look). Documentation is great for a job but if you don't have any now you probably don't have time for it. Signs near the printer, and maybe something like a checklist for each procedure and a component grid for each invoicing task are somewhat easier as reference tools. Let's face it stupid people are not going to want a color coded dictionary to decode their job for them. Labelling the stapler "NOT FOR USE ON JOBS A-Z" or whatever is a totally different kind of reminder.
posted by shownomercy at 7:34 PM on September 29, 2006

The specific examples you describe sound like honest mistakes that would be easy for a reasonably smart person to make in a new environment where they are being asked to remember 50 new things all at once. People are still making mistakes on the second day of the job? That's not at all surprising to me. You may have forgotten how much there is to learn all at once, because it seems so routine to you. Can you get them to come in for several 1/2 days of training at 3/4 pay or something like that, before you start them on the front lines?
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:46 PM on September 29, 2006

The fact that you say it's hard to hire and keep people suggests that your employees do not have enough incentive to stay in the job. Most likely the pay is too low, or the pay is average but the job is too demanding. If that's the case you're going to be scraping the bottom of the barrel for employees.

You get what you pay for.

I live in Tennessee and am also from "the North" and my opinion is that while a dreadful public school system has left many Tennessean's without book learnin' their mental capabilities are in line with the rest of America.
posted by peppermint22 at 8:42 PM on September 29, 2006

I doubt that it's area-specific. the average high school alumnus is only slightly smarter than your common beaver.

I do agree with the statement that you get what you pay for. there is a reason many businesses have very precise rulebooks for their lower-level employees. there is a reason your common telephone monkey has a script and won't do anything but read from it when you call that 800 line.

require your folks to write things down or give your orders in writing. pay more and attract better talent. hiring college students at slightly higher prices than you have to pay should do the trick. college students are strapped for cash and this tactic should allow you to pick and choose. because they mostly graduate after four years, you will have a relatively high rotation going, so treat them well in order to get them to point you out to other guys and girls they think could handle the job.

lastly, recognize potential and desire to excel. make people realize that not only the negative but also the positive has an effect. put out a small weekly cash prize for the employee who went the extra mile, who impressed you the most. especially if the pay is low, you should see some competition for that soon.
posted by krautland at 9:08 PM on September 29, 2006

I echo the emphasis on making employees take notes. If you unceremoniously rattle off a bunch of crap it'll be forgotten as easily as it was said. If it's your job to train them, it's your fault they don't take notes. Make them read "Getting Things Done," if only to learn how to make a proper to-do list.

My old boss would complain about having to "train" the kids she'd hire out of school. She couldn't be coerced to see that she had no discernible workflow, was using obsolete methods; while these kids had come out of their purely theoretical academic bubbles. Everything that's idiosyncratic about your workflow is something that's going to have to be beaten in, because ideal and correct isn't always practical or realistic (unfortunately).
posted by evil holiday magic at 12:59 AM on September 30, 2006

"There's a lot of stupid people out there. Look at it this way: think about how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of 'em are stupider than that."

--George Carlin
posted by zardoz at 1:05 AM on September 30, 2006

Yeah, maybe you could pay more, but somehow I don't think that's the problem. That seems to be the default answer.

Is there any way you can insert yourself into the hiring process? Maybe you could see things in an interview others can't. If so, specifically mention that multitasking is crucial and ask them about that.

Could you replicate a series of tasks or something in the interview and watch them perform it? I realize it sounds demeaning to say "okay, label this, sort that and do this -- you have three minutes" but maybe that'll sort out the wheat from the chaff. And Good Lord is there a lot of chaff.

I agree people are getting dumber. And not just dumb but jaw-dropping, I-can't-believe-you're-that-fucking-stupid dumb. But really, thinking isn't required much anymore. You don't have to plan your day. You've got a cell phone, so you can be reached any time, grocery stores are open 24 hours a day so you don't have to plan your shopping, etc. Planning and time management is a lost art.

Luckily there is alcohol.
posted by Atom12 at 7:17 AM on September 30, 2006

Three good answers above, which collectively should be able to answer your problme:

Harlequin is right on about pay: the job market is efficient. Someone who has the qualities you want will also have another quality: the ability to identify and obtain the best paid and benefited jobs for which they're eligible. You need to benchmark pay and benefits to what other employers are offering -- not just in your industry, but across the board in your region. You need to be especially certain to consider what the government, schools and colleges are paying, because pay and benefits are often very good, especially by rural standards. (Lots of private sector people ignore the civil service because they don't see it as a competitor, but it absolutely is a competitor for quality staff.)

Gemmy is correct about process: testing is an essential part of the evaluation process for people who haven't previously demonstrated success in the role (success that you've verified.

And Atom12 is right about being in the hiring process, although I hope that you already are. No manager with accountability for performance should ever tolerate having HR or someone else without accountability choose his staff.
posted by MattD at 7:43 AM on September 30, 2006

And here's a suggestion of my own, particularly if you don't have the ability to increase pay: relax your resume qualification standards.

For example, the vast majority of middle-income jobs for which a college degree is "required" really don't require a college degree, and there's a huge pool of sufficiently smart and motivated people whom you lock out by screening for degrees -- and they'll work for less. The same can also be said for people who don't have a prior office job. Having testing in your hiring process significnatly reduces the risk in being open to these kinds of candidates.

One nice thing about being willing to look this way is that there is a huge "visible" population in retail and services of those without college degrees. That floor guy at Home Depot or Best Buy who takes visible pride in knowing his shit? The trainer at the gym who demands that you finish every set, but also talks in an informed way about politics? A business card in their hands might go a long way.
posted by MattD at 7:52 AM on September 30, 2006

It all just depends on who's doing the hiring for your company. When you have a smart, quick-minded person hiring, they're likely to surround themselves with people like themselves.
posted by fcain at 7:53 AM on September 30, 2006

I consider myself to be a lot smarter than most people, and I do a computer-related job that's considered pretty difficult and detail-oriented. I also have a master's degree. All that said, if you hired me, I would definitely be one of the people that you consider to be stupid.

Unlike you, most of the people that you hire don't really give a shit about your business. They just want a job that pays the rent. Therefore, they're not going to be in the best state of mind for absorbing new information. They are not in 'teach me everything' mode, they are in 'was taking this job a good idea, and what does this mean I'm doing with my life' mode. When you show them a piece of paper with 300 things written on it, and tell them to deal only with whatever is written in the top-left corner, that doesn't change the fact that they are now faced with an unfamiliar piece of paper with 300 things written on it.

Also, many people (including me) learn much better by doing, making mistakes, and asking questions than they do by taking notes. When you refer to notes, you are referring to an abstraction which is itself just one more part of your new and unfamiliar environment. When you refer to your memory of having been chastized for doing the same thing that you are about to do, things are much clearer. On top of all that, when people are new to a job, especially one involving a highly judgemental boss like yourself, they are nervous about how you see them, they're trying *not* to seem stupid, and therefore they hesitate to ask for clarification.

Then, there is the fact that people who do something every day have usually forgotten long ago about how they learned how to do it to begin with. A seasoned employee may say something like 'and then you just push F2 and tab it across until you're in the accounts screen, like we did before' without realizing that their instructions, while not complicated in essence, still contain a series of assumptions, each of which needs time to sink in before the whole can become familiar.

I also doubt that you're paying them enough, but I may be stereotyping, simply because everyone I've worked for with your attitude doesn't pay their employees enough.
posted by bingo at 9:43 AM on September 30, 2006 [3 favorites]

Sounds like bingo needs a nap.

I'm not going to derail this with the age-old argument of "it's also very hard from an employer perspective."

I will say that bingo has an excellent point about everyone learning differently. Some learn by doing, some by asking questions and some by having a strict set of written rules and policies.

Another thing to keep in mind is that it's much easier to learn and know one task/process before attempting to learn another. If they're multitasking and just thrown in there, you might be asking them to learn the filing process, job tracking process and six other things all at once. Even people you'd consider smart would have a tough time keeping all that stuff straight, especially if the task they learned on the 5th won't be performed again until the 20th.

Lastly, while they don't necessarily need to give a shit about the business they should at least give a shit about doing the their job, which is what the original post was about. If the logic is job=rent money, then no job=no rent money.

Don't be afraid to fire people if they're not cutting it. It goes both ways.
posted by Atom12 at 10:54 AM on September 30, 2006

Another point about how to train:
If you're training someone on a machine/computer, let them do it with their own hands rather than just watching you do it. bingo's example about "push F2 and just tab it across" etc is exactly right... Software often presents a series of steps that can seem very simple once you've done them a few times, but which can be impossible to absorb just by watching someone else do it.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:58 AM on September 30, 2006

Miraculously, sometimes higher-paid people can be smarter than lower-paid people. Are you skinting them to the point of them not caring?
posted by DenOfSizer at 12:33 PM on September 30, 2006

It sounds like you need a two-step plan here: overhaul your training process, then evaluate your hiring process. By doing it in that order, if the training is the problem, you can keep the workers you have. If the people are the problem, you can start to rehire better employees and already have a better training procedure in place.

I'd also take a hard look at how and where you advertise these jobs. A poorly worded ad will turn off smarter applicants. And if you aren't putting your ads in locations that cater to smart folks, you'll be swamped by moron applicants. Try putting ads in with nearby college career offices, or local-oriented websites, anything that requires the audience to be a little bit brighter than average.
posted by MrZero at 12:38 PM on September 30, 2006

Just want to second one part of bingo's point. Nervousness could have something to do with it, especially if the new employees can tell how fed up you are. I'm very good at picking up on that sort of thing, and could easily see myself making similar mistakes if my training supervisor on my job was constantly rolling her/his eyes at everything I didn't get right the first time.
posted by treepour at 1:54 PM on September 30, 2006

While I disagree with much of what bingo said, I would like to point out that nervousness really is a huge issue with new people at a job.

As stated before, new employees can need anywhere between 1 and 3 months to get acclimated. At my current employer, we are hired on as temp, and we are told that our performance will be evaulated after 1, 2, and 3 months. We aren't expected to get everything. It's perfectly acceptable to not perform to par at the end of the three months, but there must be definite improvement after every month.

This allows employees to brush off the little mistakes, and know that doing something wrong for a week or two won't get them fired. Knowing that they will have the job for 3 months as long as they put an effort into improving will help relax nerves.


The people I've met from the south (and I'm over-generalizing and stereotyping, and a decision should not be based on this, but it's what was asked for) seem to be much more focused on "just getting by". They have a different set of priorities, but I don't know how to state them in an un-biased way, but I'll try. When I see it, I see them as not caring about improving their quantative "Quality of Life", but rather their qualitative "Quality of Life". If they have to choose between picking up an extra job so they can build a garage on their house, or relaxing for an extra couple hours every day, they tend to pick the relaxing. Unfortunately, (and this applies to both options) this tends to snowball into an extreme version. Some people are so caught up with "keeping up with the Jones" that they never enjoy life, and others will do the bare minimum to get by.

Neither of these extremes makes a good employee... one will be so ruthless and on the edge of depression that the workplace will be miserable, if efficient. The other will be so lazy that everyone will have to cover, but they'll at least be entertained while the guy is at work.


You want an employee with a spouse and a kid or two. _{(Dependants drive the employee's need for employment, they'll be less likely to quit spontaneously)}
The spouse should work, but not work overtime, or the night-shift._{(A happy relationship with the most important person in the employee's life means a happier default disposition)}
The employee should own a car made within the last 5 years, or a Honda/Toyota that last forever, or any other make as long as it's well cared for. _{(You're looking for thrifty and practical)}
The employee should either own a house that has enough rooms for the kids to have their own rooms, or have plans for such a purchase. _{(Planning for the future is a good quality, planned large expenditures will keep the employee from doing stupid things that might get them fired)}

There are lots of other attributes that are good, but these are some things you can look for to make sure you aren't getting a moron employee (or, if you are getting a moron employee, they have kids/house to pay for so they'll take the threat of firing much more serious).

Also, look into the idea that you aren't a good trainer. Despair.com said it best:

If you're having failure after failure at work, well... think about it at least.
posted by hatsix at 3:03 PM on September 30, 2006

and on re-read, I guess I don't disagree with most of the stuff Bingo said...
posted by hatsix at 3:05 PM on September 30, 2006

... multi-tasking is a must.

Mult-tasking is also a myth. What it says, to me, is that you are chronically short-staffed and expecting your employees to do the work of two or three other people. Employees—no matter what their intelligence level—cannot learn in this kind of environment. They are permanently distracted, and retaining any kind of information, on even a superficial level, will be extremely difficult. More here.
posted by Sonny Jim at 5:29 PM on September 30, 2006

Are we just in a bad area? Is the south like that in general?

Are all Northerners assholes? Or just stupid enough to make this kind of generalization? I think if you answer that, you've probably answered your own question.
posted by digitalis at 10:49 PM on September 30, 2006 [1 favorite]

I live in Tennessee and am also from "the North" and my opinion is that while a dreadful public school system has left many Tennessean's without book learnin' their mental capabilities are in line with the rest of America.

Apparently all your great Northern "book learnin'" hasn't taught you where to put your bloody apostrophes.
posted by digitalis at 11:00 PM on September 30, 2006

I truly believe that in general people in the South are less intelligent than people in the North. Although areas with a lot of transplants aren't nearly as bad. (I say this having lived on and off in the south for 4 years)
posted by matkline at 11:30 PM on September 30, 2006

Looking at your AskMe question history, you work for a company where the boss has a bad temper, you don’t offer health insurance and it’s not clear if you even give federal holidays off. That’s probably not the sort of place that attracts the best and brightest.

Maybe people leave because the boss blows up at them, and not because southerners can’t handle multi-tasking.
posted by Gary at 1:44 AM on October 1, 2006

Lastly, while they don't necessarily need to give a shit about the business they should at least give a shit about doing the their job, which is what the original post was about. If the logic is job=rent money, then no job=no rent money

There are a lot of jobs out there looking for unskilled labor. They are easy to get, and therefore they are also easy to leave, and so the employees are motivated to jump from one to another until they find an environment in which they feel comfortable. The more intelligent the employee, the more likely he/she is to be so motivated.

I once worked for a fairly thankless job for a baker. At one point I made a suggestion about how to increase profitability. He said 'Tell me something. Why is it that the same employees who have the bright ideas about how to make my business better are always the same ones to suddenly quit on me?'

In his dim little mind, he thought he was making a profound statement about difficult people. But the real answer to his question is that the type of people who are capable of actually caring about and nurturing a business are also good at recognizing a business that has no interest in taking care of or nurturing them as employees.
posted by bingo at 8:07 AM on October 1, 2006 [2 favorites]

You want an employee with a spouse and a kid or two. [...]

Delving too much into a candidate's personal background seems quite a bit like discrimination, if not in a legal sense, then certainly in an ethical sense. Just like an ecosystem, I'd hope you'd want the equivalent of genetic diversity. Where will your workplace be if your city's daycare workers all go on strike and panicked parents start to stay home? What if your den of homogeny decides that it needs an in-house marketing guru and all the best candidates are turned off because they'll be surrounded by people who are totally different than themselves? Systems need robustness. I'm sure that these rules of thumb have some value, but at the end of the day, I'd hope that employees stayed out of loyalty instead of fear.

My work recently had a retreat where we took a leadership competency test that basically boiled down to: You're overmanaging if you're checking in all the time on a proven employee. You're undermanaging if you just delegate and run on someone who's new or unproven.

My SO is having trouble at their new workplace because of a lot of the bad management problems mentioned above. Assuming that your employees are stupid is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Either they'll realize that the bar is low and adjust their effort accordingly, or (in the case of my SO) anxiety will hinder their performance, because they'll always be second guessing themselves and looking over their shoulder. My SO's coworkers report her errors, even minor ones, to her supervisor instead of telling her how to correct herself in the moment and everyone refuses to be open to her training questions. My SO has been blamed for errors made by others that have passed through more experienced hands and for not covering for the boss's nepots. Closed door attitudes towards training, no documentation plus snitching to top it off. My SO even has some duties that I'm not sure should be given to someone without certification.

New employees need to be empowered with the capacity to make and report mistakes. Putting the fear of management in people is just asking for mistakes to be covered up and questions to go unasked.
posted by Skwirl at 2:56 PM on October 2, 2006 [1 favorite]

You want an employee with a spouse and a kid or two.

you can't ASK that in an interview ... seriously, you'll end up with an EEO case on your hands
posted by pyramid termite at 4:22 PM on October 2, 2006

Where are all the smart people?

At better paying jobs with better benefits, probably.

I have no experience in hiring, but from a training point of view, here are some hints:

1. Don't expect people to absorb things first time. Tell them the important stuff at least three times, preferably in different ways, ie. tell them, show them, let them try.

2. Have written instructions, procedures, checklists, something for them to refer to if you aren't around. Get the next person you hire to take notes as you train them and type them up. Then all you have to do is proof them. Then keep them in sensible places.

3. Start small. Have new people do the same thing for as long as they need to perfect it. Explain in detail how it fits into the larger picture.

4. Change your attitude about people asking questions. The best thing my first supervisor ever did was say, if your not sure, ask. Where I work at least, it's better to ask a look a little stupid, than to do something wrong. If you don't like the role, tell them to ask whoever the nicest most useful person in the office is.

5. Realise that training someone will take time. It'll probably reduce your company's efficiency for a while, as you won't be doing your full load. Deal with it.

As to the rest, you do come across as a bit of a dick, I wouldn't want to work for you.
posted by kjs4 at 12:09 AM on October 3, 2006