SUDOKU (SOLUTION ON PG. 4) Take a Break!
Asking yourself if you’d want to work for you sounds strange until you put yourself in the place of one of your employees. Would You Work for You? “Good employees are hard to find and the best way I know to make
a good employee a mediocre employee is to put them in an underperforming store.”
Unless you were one of the fortunate ones who was born into the family business, chances are you started out as an
employee working for someone. And if that is the case, you will remember the things you liked about your job and the things you did not like about your job and how you were treated as an employee.
Research has been done on this subject and has come up with five basics of what employees want.
Clarity Employees want to be clear about what they are supposed to do and why it’s important. So, we must ensure people know what they’re expected to do and what success looks like. And employees want to do meaningful work, so we must connect the dots between their daily tasks — especially those that seem mundane — and the broader purpose of our organization. Knowledge They want to be successful at their jobs, so we should ensure they have the skills, tools, and knowledge they need to do their jobs well. Given how the nature of work is changing so dramatically, this means providing training on new technology, data and analytics, and/or communicating. And we must arrange for employees to be equipped with the right tools to perform the job at hand. Respect They want to be respected as people in general, so we must recognize our common humanity and treat employees with dignity and care. Moreover, employees want to be respected as individuals, so we must acknowledge different needs and wants within our workforce and appreciate the different backgrounds and perspectives our people have. Trust They want to be trusted to do their jobs, so we must give them freedom and support — freedom to make decisions and support to help them make those decisions well. Of course, this must be done at a level that is appropriate for the job, but in general, employees are much more likely to perform with excellence and produce results if we trust them to figure out the best way to do their jobs. Recognition Employees want to know that we see them and value their work. We don’t only do this through financial rewards. In fact, many studies show that once employees feel their compensation is fair, they’re more motivated by other types of awards and recognition. And a simple, timely, and public “thank you” can be very effective. I would add that employees like to be busy. If you recall your time as an employee, you will remember there was nothing worse than not having a lot to do and watch the day drag on. And if you were working in the convenience store
business and happen to be working in a store that was not a busy store, chances are you are not going to have a lot to do other than stand around and play with your phone. And if this is the case, your morale as an employee is going to be pretty low. This kind of situation generally occurs when an owner will continue to keep an underperforming store open when it is not profitable for them because they think it is the right thing to do. In reality, they are possibly wasting some good employee talent by letting the employee flounder in a store that should be closed or sold. Good employees are hard to find and the best way I know to make a good employee a mediocre employee is to put them in an underperforming store. If you don’t believe me, ask any owner of multiple convenience stores which store has the best employees, and they will tell you it is their high performing stores. This is no coincidence. It is because employees want to perform and want to be busy.
The morale of the story is the better the store the better the employee. Funny how this goes hand in hand, isn’t it?
–Terry Monroe
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WWW.TERRYMONROE.COM
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