Do you own your company? If the answer’s yes then you need to set (and keep) a high standard there. No matter how qualified or experienced employees are, it is human nature for them to want to slack off. If you set an example whereby employees think it is okay for them to behave in such a manner, it’ll be extremely difficult for you to get them motivated again. Don’t worry though because this post will tell you some preemptive steps you can take to ensure your workforce maintains a high standard and works well.
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Quality Control
When you run a business, ensuring that your employees perform to the best of their abilities isn’t your only concern. You also need to make sure that the products (or services) you are offering are optimized for efficiency. You can hire inspection professionals to conduct regular inspections of this kind for you. It is especially important that you have products checked before they are sent out if you run a business that has its own manufacturing line. Sending products out without checking them could lead to faulty ones being dispatched.
If a faulty product is received by one of your customers (and then causes injury to them) it could destroy your reputation and ultimately lead to a court case. There are law firms that specialize in bringing lawsuits against companies guilty of distributing dangerous goods. If you wind up with a lawsuit being filed, you could consequently have to pay compensation. The amount of compensation you could have to pay depends upon the severity of the person’s injuries. Your insurer might not cover you if somebody injures themselves on a faulty product, as it is your responsibility to ensure products are checked prior to being shipped.
Employee Reviews
A good way to ensure that a high standard is met at work is to perform employee reviews. An employee review is when you sit down with employees, talking to them about their performance. Performance reviews should be held every few months (or once per month if employees are new). In them, you have an opportunity to go through all of the work an employee has done for you, developing a picture of how they are as a person and how committed they are to their job. Bear in mind that during reviews employees should be given a platform to voice any concerns they have.
To effectively conduct employee reviews, get in touch with the managers of the employee you are reviewing and ask them about how they have been performing. Until you speak to the people they work with directly you won’t ever get an accurate estimation of how they are as employees. If during your research you discover that the employee being reviewed has attitude issues or does not work hard enough, do not hesitate to fire them. Keeping lazy employees on staff is one of the worst things you can do.
Direct Contact
Let’s be honest: most managers are too busy to ever build relationships with their employees. Do not be this kind of manager. If employees feel as though they can’t talk to you then they won’t ever feel comfortable working for you. Giving employees the chance to contact you directly will improve your relationship with them and also make them feel more comfortable sharing sensitive information, such as complaints about other employees. However, you do need to make sure that you don’t let employees get too comfortable with you. If they are too comfortable then they won’t take you as seriously.
In order to give employees access to you while ensuring they don’t get too comfortable, give them a special email inbox. From this inbox, send emails and company updates on a regular basis. Doing this will help you to build a strong relationship with them and prevent them from becoming too relaxed around you. Sending them updates will help them to feel more connected to your company. By feeling more connected, they will feel motivated to work harder. Motivating employees to work harder will benefit your company in innumerable ways.
Hypocritical Behavior
If you set rules for your employees, follow them yourself. Getting into the habit of not following your own rules can ruin your reputation. As you are your company’s outward face, employees will look to you. You need to be a bastion of respectability and fairness. Behaving hypocritically will ruin your reputation and stop employees from wanting to follow you. Hypocritical behavior can also make you look like you don’t respect employees. The reason for this is that if you did respect them, you wouldn’t set impossible rules, or in other words, rules you yourself cannot follow.
Of course, as an employer, there are times when you have to break your own rules. When you do have to, it is important not to let your employees see you do this. If they see you breaking the rules then they aren’t going to respect you anymore. Losing their respect can be detrimental to their performance. Of course, issues of this kind are only really a threat to small businesses. If you run a large business then nobody is going to know what you are doing, as you will be insulated from them. Even so, it’s still a good idea to follow your own rules, even under these circumstances.
Maintaining Profits
When you are running a business, you need to ensure you are receiving a steady and consistent stream of income. If you don’t perform regular checks and take the things that have been outlined here in this post into consideration then you won’t be able to do this. Maintaining profits in your company can be difficult to do if employees are not performing to the best of their ability, as mentioned several times already. Make sure that you take the time to perform regular inspections so that you can ensure your services are optimized and efficient.
Running a business has never been (and never will be) easy. As a business owner, you need to make sure that each department is optimized for efficiency. You can do that by following the advice issued here in this post. Make sure you do everything you can to keep your company running smoothly, so profits can be maximized.
