Kenny Moscot on Employee Relations.

Question: What responsibility do you feel towards your employees?

Kenny Moscot: It’s our responsibility, I think, to market our company equally as much to our employees as to our customers. I mean, they have to buy into our dedication and our devotion and our integrity and our mission as much as we do across the counter. So that’s very important to us.

Question: What should small businesses look for when hiring employees?

Kenny Moscot: I think you really want people-- it’s a philosophy, hiring.  You know, you really want people that are going to connect and understand who you are as an employer and what your brand is and what you’re trying to communicate.  It all starts with the hire.  I think that’s the most important element to a successful company.  So I put a lot of time and effort and energies into this.

Question: What hiring mistakes have you made?

Kenny Moscot: Hiring people that weren’t-- you know, you do as much as you can, maybe hiring someone for the wrong reasons, or just not hiring people that don’t understand who you are and are committed to the brand.  I think whenever you deviate from that, you’ll make a mistake.  So it’s so important to articulate that and be as transparent as you can in the interviewing process so that you’re all aligned and all on the right-- in the same place.

Question: What criteria should be factored when hiring?

Kenny Moscot: You know, I think skill sets are important.  I think from a technical standpoint everyone should be, you know, well versed in how to do certain tasks.  I think that’s, you know, I would definitely like to see that.  I always look for that.  I mean, for me of my own experiences, I mean I really tap into someone’s emotional intelligence.  That’s the most important thing for me.  It’s hard, you know.  It really depends on your business and what you’re looking for, but for us at Moscot, you know, we’re providing a service.  So someone has to have, you know, a high level of empathy.  They have to understand what it takes to make someone happy.  They have to realize this is a 93-year-old company that has been providing, you know, excellent customer service from the minute, you know, we started this thing.  And that’s the cornerstone of our success.  So those are the things we look for.  I mean, in other business, you know, there’s other-- I’m sure there’s other values that people bring to companies.  But for me, in a service related business, that’s key.  That’s the most important.

Question: How do you incent your employees to do great work?

Kenny Moscot: Focus on the inputs and not the outputs, so focus on what we need to accomplish so that the outputs look the way they do.  I think if you just focus on income statements and so forth, that’s a moot point at that point.  You know, you’re looking at the past.  Let’s look about what we need to do today, what product, what initiatives do we have to do now and quantify those things, and then measure them.

Recorded on: 03/25/2008