Does it drive you crazy when your employees can’t follow instructions?
You ask them to do one thing and they do something else. What you say (or think you’ve said) gets misinterpreted. Does the job often turn out nowhere near like you expected, or wanted?
Most business owners run up against this issue. It’s one of the most common frustrations we hear. You want your employees to do exactly what you want them to do, and to do it the way you want it done.
It sounds simple enough. So what goes wrong? And how are you going to get your employees to do what you want them to do– and get it right the first time?
Just sit back for a moment and consider this – sometimes it’s really hard to even get yourself to do anything (I’m thinking diets, new year’s resolutions etc.). If you have that much trouble getting yourself to do anything, how are you going to get someone else to do it?
The Simple Way to Make a Big Difference
How? Make your business systems dependent, not people dependent.
If you’ve got the right systems, and they’re implemented well, you will get the right results through your people. Almost every time.
I recall chatting to the manager of an island resort about this very problem. Many of his employees lived and breathed “island time”. You can imagine the difficulties involved in managing results in this environment. He would give the same instructions to his employees yet end up with a vast array of different results.
The manager found that systems and procedures were the key. He even had systems and procedures for the systems and procedures. It was the only way he found to keep the resort running well and achieve the standard of results he needed.
Getting Started With Systems and Procedures
You may be wondering how to go about putting systems and procedures in place. Why not start by creating a systems and procedures manual?
This could take many forms – hard copy, online version, onscreen pdf etc. It depends what suits your business and what’s going to be accessible for your employees.
Sure, this will take some time – it’s not going to happen overnight. But if you consider the frustration to date, it’s well worthwhile. The time spent will be far outweighed by the time saved when your employees are doing it right the first time. Not only that, with systems and procedures in place you can engage people with the right attitude. Then train them to run the systems. This tends to get rid of the prima donnas who often hold the business to ransom.
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Put the systems in place.
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Have a procedure to follow.
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If people follow the systems the work will get done in the way you want it done.
The systems run the business, the people run the systems.