Best Practices 12, 13 & 14

There are very few areas of human interaction that couldn’t be improved by better communication and business operations certainly is not an exception. Reasonable people will respond reasonably when provided with the facts, the objectives and a clear understanding of their role in the endeavor. Encourage managers and supervisors to listen at least as much as they talk – to solicit input from employees and act on it when merited. If you treat employees like androids, you should expect them to act like androids! If you expect employees to think, you had better arm them with the facts and be ready to respond to their questions, suggestions and concerns. No one ever said managing a business would be easy!

A healthy workplace is based on trust and mutual respect. Those lofty attributes are easiest achieved when each employee understands and shares the company’s goals and sense of purpose. While communication is the key to employee understanding, success often takes more. Success today means management needs to win employees’ hearts and minds. It could be said that you win their minds with communication and you win their hearts with the emotional buy-in that comes from empowerment. Empowering an employee doesn’t always mean giving him or her decision-making authority. Sometimes it’s as little as making them feel more comfortable about bringing a problem or suggestion to their supervisor’s attention.

It may be human nature for business owners to almost arbitrarily force benefit coverage and costs down as much as possible. After all, it comes right off of the bottom line – right? Well, it’s also a fact of life that employees change jobs today for better benefit coverage for themselves and their families. Take an objective look at your offering versus other local competitors and similar industries. Are you competitive? It may be old-school thinking to say “we aren’t competitive, but we pay better!” That may or may not matter to an ill employee and his peers. Balance is the key. 

Also, don’t be afraid to gently squeeze your benefit providers. They don’t develop state-of-the-art programs without feeling a little pressure themselves!