“Ghosting” in the Marijuana Industry

Ask any employer, and even many employees, and they’ll tell you: “ghosting” is one of the most annoying things that can occur in business. We’re sure you’re aware of this term, but if not, this is when an employee simply stops showing up to work with no notification and then never comes back again.
This happens in every industry, but with the marijuana industry still in its infancy (relatively), ghosting can be especially hard on any marijuana business, its employees, and its customers. This is why we’ve taken the time to outline a few simple steps that you can take to help alleviate this harmful and annoying practice.

Be Honest About Your Concerns

It’s absolutely amazing what a little honesty can do, and that goes for your company’s owner or hiring manager, too. There’s nothing wrong with telling a new or existing employee the concerns you may have regarding ghosting. If you’ve experienced it in the past, explain to them up front that you would prefer that the employee be honest and direct with you no matter the reason. This could make them think twice before doing it.

Have an Open Door Policy

Ghosting often happens because an employee has something going on in his or her personal life that they would prefer not to bring into the workplace, so they just decide to avoid it altogether by no longer showing up at work. This can also happen because of an event that occurs in the workplace that they don’t wish to discuss. Be sure to let your employees know that you have an open door policy and they should never be afraid to bring up anything that’s going on in their lives.

Run a Comprehensive Background Check

The more you know about an employee’s background, the higher chance you have at avoiding a ghosting situation. This is why you should always run a comprehensive background search on each employee, and why you may want to occasionally consider performing a routine search on existing workers. An employee who has a clean criminal record and whose education and work experience can be validated is probably more likely to be an employee that you can count on to not simply vanish one day.

Hire Workers Who Don’t Jump from Job to Job

A big red flag that may indicate an employee’s willingness to ghost an employer is a work history that shows a tendency to jump from job to job. This doesn’t mean that ghosting is a sure thing, but it’s definitely something you want to bring up in conversation. Ask a potential employee to explain why he or she has changed jobs after only a short stint in the past, and detail your concerns. It will be up to you to decide whether or not you think the person may be a risk.

Always Have a Plan in Place

Ghosting causes a huge stress on your staff and even on your customers. To help prevent this, you should always have some kind of plan in place. What you basically want to do is follow a series of steps in the event that ghosting occurs that will help fill in the gaps left by the missing worker. This will typically include knowing which employee to call in order to cover the vanished worker’s shift and/or responsibilities, or even going in yourself to get it covered. And you should always be ready to begin the hiring process to help alleviate the loss as soon as possible.

As mentioned above, one of the best ways to avoid ghosting in the marijuana industry is to perform thorough background checks on each new hire. Once you’re ready, give the research experts at NationSearch a call or visit our website. We’ll get you started right away.