Connecting Employees to Your Business
Sandy Hughes, MSHR
How many business owners go into business without an idea of what they want to do or a plan to get it done? If you needed to borrow money (from a bank, venture capitalist, or Great Uncle Harry), I'm sure you had your ideas well thought out and documented into a road map that would, at minimum, ensure that your loan was paid back, and, at best, that your business flourished and became a resounding success. Why, then, do so many businesses not do as much for their employees? Where is the plan for them? Where’s the road map for them to help create that success?
A couple of weeks ago I found myself conducting a seminar for young professionals who were going through a training program to prepare them to become board members for non-profit organizations. My job was to go through the major Human Resource systems found within organizations. I got on my soapbox when we came to the Performance Management System, as I am passionate about linking employees to the mission/vision and goals of an organization. It doesn’t matter whether the organization is a not-for-profit or a for-profit concern; employees can’t possibly be the greatest support to the organization if they are operating blind. They will do the best they can do but this may not be the right thing at the right time or it may not be something even essential to the organization’s mission or success.
Every organization needs to have at least yearly goals and, if possible, a strategic plan that looks at the next three to five years. Every position within your organization should be tied to those annual goals. If a position can’t be tied into at least a supporting role for those goals, it probably isn’t necessary. Once the organization’s goals have been established, the next step is to set metrics around the goals and then identify who needs to work on achieving/delivering the goal and by when. Metrics can be as straight forward as: Increase customer sales by 10%; or, Reduce office supply spending by 15%; or, Zero safety incidents/accidents; or, Reduce operating costs by 10%.
It is easier to determine if your employees are performing as you expect when they are tied to measurable goals that are important to the organization’s success. Having goals that are very subjective or having goals that aren’t clear makes performance discussions difficult and often meaningless. I once had a supervisor who told me I wasn’t “there yet” when it came to achieving my goals. My problem was that I hadn’t any idea where “there” was or how I was to know when I got “there.” As it turned out, his goal was to get me to leave the company and I did out of shear frustration. Organizational leaders invest too much time in finding and training employees to short-change both the employee and the organization by not linking the employee to clear and measurable organizational goals.
By starting at the top, i.e., setting the organizational goals first, and then moving down the organization with the goal connection, all within the organization are working on the “right stuff.” This is something that can’t be achieved through the “bottom up” approach of asking employees to identify their goals for the year. It’s like throwing darts blindfolded and hoping that the dart finds the center. Employees who are closest to the top of the organization, or know intuitively what needs to be done, will find the right things to work on. The remainder of the employees will only have the information or the person that they are closest to for guidance with goal identification.
Organizations where the employees know what’s going on and know that they make a difference to the organization’s success have been rated the best places to work. Even mundane jobs like picking up litter and keeping the place tidy can become an important employee job when seen as the difference between potential customers coming in the door because they believe that the care the business takes with its appearance will be reflected in the care with which they are treated, or just driving off muttering “no way.”
So, start connecting your employees to your business–or re-connect them if it’s been a while since you communicated what’s important and needed for organizational success. Help your employees know what you need from them. Be clear about it. Determine ways that you can measure their contribution. Recognize and reward those employees who help you to be successful and clearly guide, coach, and monitor those who aren’t measuring up.
Sandy Hughes, MSHR is President of Hughes-Consulting Human Resources & Business Management Consulting, Partnering with You to Achieve Results
Sandy can be reached at: hughesconsulting@bellsouth.net or www.hughes-consulting.org
