Working interviews

Another practical tip to find out how a business really works, interview the people who do it and not their managers, who don t know the half of it. And don t believe what people say they do Watch them doing it. It usually takes several visits to do the job properly. 

The type of data in hand matters, whether quantitative (exam scores, survey scale responses) or qualitative (written student work, interview transcripts. 

The Motivation Are you looking for a 9-5 job and then going home. Or are you enthusiastic about what you are doing You should love your work. Interviewers and colleagues will know the difference, and it will affect your career path. Even if you hate work, push yourself to have a positive attitude. Fake it until you make it (this is truly a viable philosophy). Are you loyal to your employer Is the loyalty returned ... 

If a Fimess For Work interview is required, ensure their CC accompanies them... 

Analyst Analysts must have a firm understanding of the operation of the unit. If they are not involved in the day-to-day operation or responsible for the unit, more preliminaiy work including process familiarization, equipment familiarization, operator interviews, and constraint hmitations will be required. Even when an analyst is responsible, a review is necessaiy. Analysts must firmly estabhsh the purpose of the unit test. Different levels require different budgets, personnel, and unit commitment. Additional resources beyond that required for routine measurements must be justified against the value of the measurements to the establishment of the understanding of the plant operation. 

An essential part of the on-site visit is the physical inspection of the toller facility—the walk-through. It offers the opportunity to confirm interview responses, observe work practices, interview employees, and note general housekeeping, soil contamination and safety issues. 

Wlien interviewing potential workers for hazardous waste work, the interviewer should determine if the interviewee is up to date in training. Should the perspective worker get the job, how much time, effort and money will it take in training to get that worker up to speed It is... 

Compliance with the written program can be verified during the walkaround by personal observation and employee interviews. If respirators are required to be worn in the workplace or respirators other than dust masks are worn by voluntary users, a written program is required. An overexposure is not required to cite. Discrepancies between the written program and implemented work practices at the worksite should be cited. Use of a elastomeric or supplied-air respirator, even when voluntary on the part of the employee, will require the employer to include all elements in a written program that will make sure that there is proper use of these respirators so that they do not create a hazard. 

The contractors SSAHPs at Sites B, F, and K had general confined space provisions but lacked site-specific confined space procedures. For example, SSAHPs for the Site K contractor and subcontractor had written confined space entry programs, but the programs did not establish site-specific rescue procedures or identify the confined space hazards present on the site. The job hazard analyses for both programs failed to address site maintenance tasks that could involve confined space entry and hot work hazards. The programs also failed to identify the specific person or position responsible for supervising confined space entry procedures and the location of permit-required confined spaces on site. Interviews with both contractors indicated confusion about rescue procedures. 

The audit includes a review of the process safety information, inspection of the physical facilities, and interviews with all levels of plant personnel. Using the procedures and checklist, the team systematically analyzes compliance with the PSM Rule and any other relevant corporate policies. The training program is reviewed for adequacy of content, frequency and effectiveness of training. Interviews determine employee knowledge and awareness ofthe safety procedures, duties, rules, and emergency response assignments. The team identifies deficiencies in the application of safety and health policies, procedures, and work authorization practices to determine live actions. 

It is worth noting that personnel managers who were interviewed as part of the above study had few expectations that selection would enable them to overcome inadequate training, job, or work design. Selection was seen as something that had to be done completely and conscientiously in order to make the best decisions possible. There was no expectation that, on its own, selection would solve operating problems. 

One way of analyzing the data is to use a columnar format, with columns such as Displays Used, Control Used, Action, Decision, Goal Pursued, etc. which are filled in directly from the protocol information. A useful discussion of the application of the technique to process control tasks is given by Bain-bridge (1974), and Ainsworth and Whitfield (1984). Apart from collecting data about the task, discussions and interviews with the workers can get their direct commitment to a project and can make them feel that they "own" any proposed new work system. 

In 1988, the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) included an Occupational Health Supplement, which included questions on dermatitis. The survey consisted of personal interviews of people in randomly selected households. For 30,074 people participating in the NHIS, the period prevalence for all forms of dermatitis was 11.2% and for contact dermatitis was 2.8%. Projecting these results to the U.S. working population resulted in an estimate of 13.7 million people with dermatitis and 3.1 million people with contact dermatitis.67... 

Remember that it is important to assess for suicidality when working with any client with a history of suicidal and parasuicidal behavior. Not only ideations should be assessed, but also plans, lethality of plans, means to carry out those plans, and proximity of means. You would surprised at how often such clients carry lethal doses of pills, razor blades, or even guns in their purses, pockets, or backpacks during such an assessment interview with intentions to use these items. (Please see the extended discussion about suicide assessment in Chapter 3.)... 

There are other diagnostic interviews available as well. For example, there is the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS Robins, Helzer, Croughan, Ratcliff, 1981) for adults, which many professionals use and there is the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC Shaffer, Fisher, Lucas, Dulcan, Schwab-Stone, 2000) for youth and adolescents. These interview schedules are similar to the SCID and each is now in its fourth edition. Computerized versions for administration and scoring have been developed, but these, like the SCID software, can be pricey for small and solo practices. There are other diagnostic interviews not mentioned here that may work for you as well. 

Some of these measures are part of larger, semistructured interviews administered by the therapist. The most commonly used assessments in this category are a family of instruments developed mainly in the Veterans Administration (VA) hospital system. The first instrument in this family is known as the Addiction Severity Index (ASI McLellan et al., 1985). The ASI assesses for a wide variety of biographical data, so it has the advantage of potentially being used as part of an intake interview. The ASI asks about consequences in a wide variety of life domains, and determines recent and lifetime patterns of drug and alcohol use. The ASI also detects recent and lifetime occurrence of problems in these different life domains (e.g., work). Each domain can be scored for the severity of the problems based upon the responses of the client and the clinical judgment of the interviewer. The ASI can be administered by computer to provide for rapid interpretation of answers. 

---