Miserable and dissatisfied employees are dangerous to your business. Ensuring that your employees are happy where they are will ensure that your business is well equipped enough to handle almost anything that the market throws at it.
Making money at the expense of good service and good people is a one-way ticket to a failing business.
Jill Hamlyn, MD, The People Business
Certain common threads in some companies in the Southern and Northern Hemispheres can be extrapolated and condensed into the following commandments:
1. Thou shalt not lie
Do not lie to your employees and certainly do not lie to your clients and customers and expect your employees to collude. Professionalism demands that company and employee present a united front, and professional employees will strive to keep a neutral face when confronted by clients promised one thing but delivered another. When one lie follows another, however, honest employees get uncomfortable and sooner or later, the truth will out. If you establish a culture of lying in your business, you will constantly need to keep checking your back for knives: it stands to reason that your employees and clients may be as dishonest as you are, but with a different agenda.
2. Thou shalt not be greedy
Money is nice and lots of money is even nicer, but greediness is universally disparaged and greedy people even more so. Making money at the expense of good service and good people is a one-way ticket to a failing business. Greed is closely related to exploitation, and few people who have alternatives will stand for it.
3. Thou shalt know thy staff
In a company of 1 000 people, the CEO cannot be expected to know everyone. As MD of a company of 40 or even 100, you have no excuse. You should know who they are, how they got there and the details of their contract if they have one. Employees who perceive they are unknown and uncared for are going to leave. High staff turnover leads to an unstable company and high client turnover.
4. Thou shalt not upbraid thy staff in public
If an employee has done something wrong and needs to be confronted, take the dressing down behind closed doors. Loudly screaming at someone in front of other employees and clients is embarrassing for the client, and breeds fear and resentment in all the employees. Resentful, angry and afraid employees are going to leave. Resentment, anger and fear damage businesses and your reputation as an employer.
5. Thou shalt not divide and rule
This is closely related to the rule that you, as an employer, managing director, director or manager, will not gossip or bitch about some employees to others. The damage it does to company morale is irreparable. The damage it does to your authority is worse. And what are they saying about you? Dividing and ruling by whatever means may have worked in the past, but employees are wising up and the result may be a workforce united against you.
6. Thou shalt invest in thy staff
In light of the Skills Development Act, this will soon be compulsory and out of the realm of choice. However, you should have chosen to invest in the people who work for you long before you were forced to. Staff members who have been invested in show greater returns, both personal and professional, than those who have been ignored. Employees who have been invested in are also keen to invest themselves in your business. It is a win-win situation.
7. Thou shalt take staff seriously
This means not keeping them waiting when they have an appointment with you. It means paying them on time, in full. It means taking their concerns seriously and working with them to sort out potential problems. It means not stamping on initiative and respecting the people you were wise enough to employ.
8. Thou shalt never underestimate the power of employee loyalty
Loyal employees do not leave. They do not have the desire to see your company fail because they like the company and what it stands for. Loyal employees do not gossip about you to other employees or to clients, friends, enemies, or journalists. They will help prop the door of the cupboard closed as the skeleton inside tries to escape. Disloyal employees, on the other hand, can wreak a world of damage. Disloyal employees often feel they have been driven to their disloyalty, or have observed you being disloyal either to them or to others.
9. Thou shalt not kill good ideas
Sometimes the best ideas are brought to light by those at the coalface. These ideas should not be discarded or ridden over because of the position of the person who brought them to you. Those at the bottom or the middle of the company hierarchy perceive things differently to those at the top and can often have a way of taking their experience and creating an idea that can put a company head and shoulders above the rest. Listen. Take note.
10. Thou shalt support thy staff
A teacher walking into a classroom of unruly teenagers needs to know that he has the principal`s support if he has no choice but to send a troublemaker out of the class. He needs to know that he will have the principal on his side if the pupil`s parents query the move. If you are on your employees` side and they are sure of your support, they will be confident decision-makers who earn respect. If you do not assure your employees that you are behind them, they become fearful of sticking their necks out and taking risks. Calculated (and sometimes uncalculated) risks can mean the difference between a company that flies and one that crawls.
The key tenet in all of these, and in business as a whole, is respect and the ability to communicate this to the people who matter - your employees and your clients. A little goes a long way. Treat your employees well and you will get your just rewards.
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