Herman: John L. Herman Jr., Author

Save the Company...Save Your Job...

You know who has more information about your customers and the operations of your business than you do? Your employees do. Workers are the ones interacting every day with the people who spend money with your business. When was the last time you actually sat down and listened to what your workers had to say about your customers or your operations?

Employees sometimes watch the business go down the drain without risking rejection should they put forth a new idea about how to improve the business. The old fashioned “suggestion box” was the perfect example of how you scare employees by having them hide behind a note left without a signature in a box for the “big boss” to ponder without fear of repercussion.

If you are a worker sit down right now and write down three things you would change immediately if you were the owner instead of just the worker bee. Now, take this little assignment seriously…don’t just give yourself a raise with the first change you would make. Write down three things that absolutely could be done without great expense and implemented rather quickly.

One company I owned was losing more than one hundred thousand dollars per month when I bought it. I held a staff meeting and gave the employees this assignment. They wanted three things more than anything else: painting the hideous walls, make the plumbing work so they could wash their hands in cold and hot water, and please communicate better with staff so they knew where the company was heading; after all this was their livelihood too. For less than ten thousand dollars we changed the culture of that company and the staff of more than three hundred turned that place around in months instead of years. The reject rate on the parts we manufactured went down from twenty-eight percent to about three percent and the savings gave us a profit of more than one hundred thousand dollars monthly.

If you are an employee, turn in your list this week. If you are a business owner and don’t talk to staff this week…please sell your business.

• Posted: 10 September 2008
• Comments: 0
• Category: Business success

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