The Perfect Employee Story
Years ago, in an earlier life before I decided to sell my business and work in the mergers and acquisitions of convenience stores, I owned a lot of businesses and employed more than a couple thousand employees. I was a typical employer. I would complain about how hard it was to find good employees, and then when I found good employees, I would complain about how I couldn’t get them to do everything I wanted them to do the exact way I wanted it done. Even though that was many years ago, the struggle to find good employees and train them has not changed from when I was utilizing employees in my business, and it actually may have gotten worse. The people I talk with today who have employees are saying the same things to me that I was saying when I had employees. So, how does someone find the perfect employee? The answer is: You don’t. The whole idea of finding the perfect employee changed for me one day when I owned and operated about 100 video rental stores. (Here is a side note to show I am dating myself. Recently, I mentioned to a young man I was having a conversation that I used to own over 100 video rental stores, and he looked at me and cocked his head and said, “What is a video rental store? Is it like a Redbox?” To which I responded by saying yes, it was like a Redbox but inside a building.) Anyway, back to my perfect employee story. Whenever you have a business, you need to market and advertise to grow your business. I had come up with a new marketing idea and needed my idea put into print for distribution, and I wanted to make sure the marketing piece was put together right. Even though I had a marketing department and someone who took care of the marketing for the company and was good at what they did, I didn’t trust them to do it the way I wanted it done because I thought only I could do it correctly. So, I took the marketing piece to my local printer and began explaining to them how I wanted the piece laid out and printed and how many of the pieces I wanted printed. Then,
while I was giving a dissertation about how I wanted the marketing piece created, out from the back office of the print shop came the owner, with whom I had gone to school and knew very well. He knew I owned a lot of video rental stores, and his company had been doing all our printing for years, and looked at me and said, “What are you doing here?” I explained to him how I had this new marketing piece and how I needed it laid out and printed and how I wanted to make sure it was done right, and I didn’t trust my marketing employee to get the job done the way I wanted it done and that was why I was at his print shop. I remember him looking at me, shaking his head, and telling me, “Terry, you don’t get it when it comes to employees. There is no such thing as a perfect employee. What you need to strive for is to find an employee who can do the job 75% of the way you want it done, because if an employee could and would do the job you wanted done better than 75%, they wouldn’t be working for you. Instead, they would be working for themselves.” From that day forward, it was like I had an epiphany. I still complained about how hard it was to find employees, but I never complained about finding the perfect employee; instead, I strived to find my 75% employees. The 75% employee theory may not be the best way to categorize how to obtain a great employee. But it helped me to put into perspective what I wanted in an employee and helped to remind me that employees are not mind readers and can’t read their employer’s minds, even when they have been told what to do. So, the next time you find yourself complaining or aggravated about an employee, think about taking your valuable time to perform a duty an employee could do. Think about the 75% employee rule, and it will help to put your mind at ease. I know it did for me.
–Terry Monroe
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