I was at a local business the other day and had a bad experience. I've always had good service at this business on previous occasions, but this time, I was very disappointed with my service. One of the reasons why this experience was bad is because the owner was not there on this particular day.
This is an endemic problem with many small businesses. The business has a good model for success, as long as the ownership team is present, but once unsupervised, things fall apart. It gets to the point that where the ownership team feels they need to be there during every hour of operation.
The stories of small business owners working 80 – 100 hours per week are true, no doubt, because sometimes that’s what it takes to get the job done. I have to admit that not only did I do that, but I was guilty of wearing that as a badge of pride in my early days as a small business owner.
Yet working that many hours is often a sign of poor operations management and could be a tell tale sign that a business is not investing enough time in training their employees. Small business owners who have employees and still work that many hours should question whether they could delegate more of their duties.
It wasn’t long after working the countless hours in my stores that I learned that nothing I did was really that specialized of a skill. I was always the guy who made the bagel dough and baked the bagels in the first few years of operation. On the days I did turn it over to my partner or an employee, I would have this foolish pride in the fact that a few regular customers would notice that someone besides me made the product, because it wasn’t as good as when I made it.
It didn’t take long for me to have the epiphany that if I wanted my business to improve, as well as my quality of life, I could not make myself so mission critical to success. Rather, I should invest the time in training my employees to be as good, if not better, than me in helping out with operations.
I referenced the fact that I worked for a major fast food establishment in a previous post. One of the things that I remember from my experience there is that I had to watch 30 minute training videos before working in any of the stations. Whether it was working the grill, the fryer, the cash register or on janitorial duty, there was a video of how to properly work that station. I still remember how all the employees hated janitorial duty (it was called “lot and lobby”) where we had to change ashtrays, take out the garbage, sweep/mop and clean the bathrooms. Still, we watched a video on how to properly perform all those tasks to this company’s standards.
The realization that these videos were pure genius struck me years later when I told one of my employees at my bagel store to mop the front area floor. I went to do something in the back and returned to the horror of a floor that looked much worse after the mopping than before. You see, I forgot to tell this employee that before you mop a floor, you have to sweep up all the loose dirt. While that may seem like common sense to some, those of us who have had employees learn quickly that for there to be common sense, there needs to be common experiences and training. This particular employee never had to mop a floor before and this was his first experience. I may have made the same mistake the first time I mopped a floor had I not watched that training video at my first job.
Of course, you may have in mind delegating significantly more responsibility to your employees than just a mopping a floor. That is fine as long as you are committed to training your employees to accept those responsibilities.
When approaching training, keep in mind the old maxim to “hire for attitude, train for skill.” Especially when delegating management responsibilities. You can train your employees to develop certain skills, but you can’t change their temperament.
Developing a training program is not easy and it will take an investment of time. Just remember that every minute invested in an effective training program will return countless minutes of your own future productivity.
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1 comment:
Rick,
This blog is spot on and is not only limited to small business organizations. Lisa Ford has some really nice media relating to the effective ways to hire, train and reward employees. Your "hire for attitude, train for skill" comment reminded me of some of Lisa's strategies for effective customer service. It is as simple as "customer turnover is directly related to employee turnover". Lisa gives 5 keys to effective hiring and sure enough, # 2 is to hire the attitude. A major mistake both large and small organizations make is that they do not invest enough time in the interviewing and hiring process.
My predecessor at my company made that mistake prior to my arrival at the company. The company was going through serious scrutiny from our external auditors over its accounting procedures, and desperate for "another body" they hired, well, just another body. I was at the company but 3 days, and after 1 conversation with the "body", I called my Controller into my office and questioned his ability to hire. Of course he quickly pointed out that it was not his hire, but rather my predecessors'. Sadly, my predecessors' skills as a CFO mirrored his interviewing skills which I guess explained the accounting issues I had to fix.
I only bring this up to show that larger organizations (we are a publicly traded company) suffer from similar issues as small businesses do.
I would like to add to your blog if I may. Not only is it important for the business owner to "learn not to be there" it is equally as important for the business owner to plan for one or more of their employees to "not be there". And what I am referring to is the importance of cross-training. A well-oiled machine works as well as the sum of all of its parts. What an organization does not want is for its operations to stumble when one part is missing.
As CFO, I have created and implemented a TCE (Train, Cross-train and Empower) program. Each of my employees are not only trained to perform their functions, but are also able to fill in when someone else in the department is out. This type of program satisfies two of my concerns as a manager: 1.) enabling the department to run effectively even when there is absenteeism (or "what happens if you get hit by a bus"); 2.) I am NEVER backed into a corner by a potentially disgruntled employee who has a gun to my head because he/she is the only one who knows the job.
While smaller (and some larger) businesses may not have the wherewithal to produce training videos similar to those of the major fast food establishment you referred to in your post, it is indeed vital for all organizations to invest the time to develop detailed training manuals for all of the functions of the organization.
An organization cannot allow employee turnover to impact customer satisfaction. The best investments a business owner (or manager) can make is the investment of time in the hiring process and the investment of time in training and cross-training.
I am aware that my comments are essentially a regurgitation of yours, but as they say, imitation is the best form of flattery.
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