Five Steps to Better Employee Management
Hiring employees is a huge responsibility. Before hiring anyone,
be sure to carefully analyze your needs in terms of extra
assistance. Once you've gotten through the hiring process, there's still much
more you must do now that you've become an employer. If you're
like most small business owners, you just don't have time to do
all you're supposed to be doing when it comes to managing your
employees. The article aims to outline five steps you can take right now to
better manage your employees. Failure to complete these steps may
one day lead to trouble for your business ? trouble that could
easily have been avoided. Step #1 ? Publish a Company Handbook Most employers do nothing more than chuckle at the mere mention
of a company handbook. Who has time for such frivolousness?
Besides, no one reads them anyway. If these are your thoughts,
then think again. Make time to create a company handbook and then
make every employee read it. Also have every employee sign a
statement saying that they have read the handbook. Place the
signed statement into their personnel file where it will remain
should you ever need it. Step #2 ? Create Files for Sensitive Employee Data You will have a lot of employee-related documentation to keep
track of and you must have a place to store it all, safely, and
away from prying eyes. Payroll information, health insurance
information, certifications including expiration dates,
performance reviews, and kudos from happy clients as well as
negative comments from clients or supervisors are just some of
the documentation you need to maintain. Step #3 ? Create a Schedule If you operate a business with "normal" business hours and just a
few employees, you might think that creating a schedule is
unnecessary. But unless there is a schedule, you can only assume
that your employees know when they need to show up to work.
Creating schedules is a good habit to get into, especially if you
plan to have a lot of employees on your payroll. Create a work
schedule for your employees and put it where they will see it. Step #4 ? Perform Periodic Employee Evaluations Employee evaluations or performance reviews tend to be more
important to the employee than they are to the employer.
Employees want to know how they are doing and when they'll be
eligible for a pay increase. There are so many reasons why it's
important to complete employee reviews, including legal ones. An
employee review is one of the few things you have, in writing and
signed by employee and employer, that clearly describes an
employee's performance on the job. Should you ever need to let
the employee go or take other action, you'll have this
documentation to back up your decision. Step #5 ? Keep a Safe Work Environment Sure you need to keep your fire exits clearly marked and free of
clutter. But there are Federal and state laws with which you must
comply covering everything from the storage of hazardous
chemicals to the posting of bulletins in common areas where
employees congregate. Comply with these regulations before you
end up on the losing side of a lawsuit. Properly implementing these five steps seems like a lot of work
especially when you have little spare time. One way you can
manage your employees and still have time to do all your other
tasks is to purchase software that has been designed to help
manage employees. Spending the time and money to better manage
your employees now will keep you from spending even more time and
money later on, after you've been hit with an employee-related
lawsuit! Copyright © 2004 Cavyl Stewart. Get more software tips, strategies and recommendations to help you better manage your employees by signing up for my Exclusive 100% free, 100% original content ecourse: "How To Survive The Legal Dangers Of Being An Employer." To sign up please visit:
http://www.find-small-business-software.com/employee-ecourse.html
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There aren't too many words that can strike as much fear and loathing into the hearts of your internal customers, and sometimes your own employees as the words "Operational Measurements". Operational Measurements often get a bad rap because of their misuse by well intended, but misinformed management. And it's easy for your employees to view Operational Measurements as some kind of cheap trick to force more work out of them as you constantly try and force more and more production from your team. Meanwhile, your sales team thinks that you will use Operational Measurements to cloud the issue of customer satisfaction by pointing to your "great numbers" while leaving the customer very unhappy.
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Yep, Operational Measurements are good. . . . except of course, when they are bad.
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Many of the things you can count, don't count.
Many of the things you can't count, really count. - Albert Einstein
Any time your organization receives some kind of a work order from a customer (internal or external) adds value to it, and then either completes it or passes it along to another organization, you qualify as an Operational Organization. As an Operational Organization you need to have solid measurements in place to measure, validate, and eventually improve your own internal processes.
But there is a downside to Operational Measurements as well. The downsides can take many forms, but the most common are when you start to measure everything that you do, simply because you can. Also, when your measurements rather than your customers, begin to drive how you do business.
Are you counting the right things? The right way? Are you counting so many things that counting them has turned into your primary business? Are you helping your customers, or hurting them?
That's the difference between good Operational Measurements, and bad ones.
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When you first implement your Operational Measurements, you will spend a lot of time analyzing, improving, and tweaking them. The painstaking process of developing and implementing the right measurements requires a lot of time up front. But that time is time well invested to make sure your measurements are complete, accurate, and in synch with your organizational objectives. You must spend the necessary hours making sure that your Operational Measurements track to your objectives, that they provide a consistent measurements, and that they are at the appropriate level of detail to allow you to identify weaknesses in your operation, and implement improvements. But, when you find yourself counting things because you can, or you begin adding measurements that do not relate to your objectives that's the first sign of trouble. Also, when your Operational Measurements become the sole driver in your organization, that's a pretty good sign that you've turned the corner and are headed down the wrong path.
Remember, not everything that counts, can be counted. And just because you can count it, doesn't mean you should count it.
Let's use the example we previously discussed of a house painter. For our purposes here, this is a big house painting company with multiple crews who do different types of painting. At the start of the year the decision is made to set a new objective for your crew. You are now being asked to paint 13 houses per month with the same size crew, up from just 10 last year. You sit down with your crew and begin to look for ways to improve productivity. You make the necessary changes to your team or process and then set out to accomplish your new goal. Your changes are effective and productivity improves and you start reaching your new goal.
Then, a funny thing happens.
You get a memo from your boss that goes something like this.
"The bean counters tell me that your paint brush usage is up 15% above last year. Every dollar counts, so I'm putting together a special task force to cut the number of paintbrushes being used. We need to reduce our paint brush usage to 10% below last years level within 30 days."
And . . . . we're off . . . . this is what I sometimes refer to as "The Operational Measurement Shuffle".
What is the Operational Measurements Shuffle? It's a dance that management sometimes does where we lose focus on our objectives and instead start dancing with a lot of extraneous information that may LOOK important, but really isn't. Sometimes it's not entirely clear when the Operational Measurements Shuffle actually begins. But if you pay attention, you'll see the dance by the end of the first chorus.
We're now going to start counting things (paintbrush usage) that has nothing to do with our objectives, but that looks important to someone else far away. Notice that the boss didn't ask you to explain why paintbrush usage was up, nor did he look at the cost/benefit of paintbrush usage versus revenue, he just told you to reduce the usage. You can expect this new measurement to be followed by new measurements of the painters' hats being used, the amount of thinner being used, and questions about the number of rungs required on the ladders. And lastly he blamed the "bean counters". The uninformed always blame the bean counters.
At first glance you might think that it's ok to wonder about the paintbrush usage. And it is. But there is a difference between asking a question, and putting in new measurements to track them. For example, a smart boss would have called and asked about the increase in the number of paintbrushes being used. Your response might have been something like this.
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With a good boss, that will end the discussion. You've answered the questions, explained the variance, and shown that there is just cause for the increase.
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After all, who are we to argue with Einstein
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