| I often hear employers express their frustration over their employees underperforming or with high absence levels. The consequences of this can be highly costly to the employer in management time addressing the issue, managing the frustrations of the wider team through to the ‘knock on’ effect that this has to the customer experience which can potentially result in the loss of a customer.
So what can you do as an employer to address these issues?
A key tactic is to get to know your employees.
- What motivates them to come to work?
- Are they ambitious?
- Do they thrive on opportunities to expand their knowledge?
You can do this in a number of ways:
- Employee Opinion Surveys – they can be a fantastic way to gauge anonymously how committed employees are within your Company.
- Suggestion Schemes – they can be a fantastic way of rewarding employees with great ideas which can have a great impact on the bottomline. “At Sainsbury’s, someone on the shop floor worked out that while the popularity of mangoes went up after a “two for £2.50? deal, the packaging they came in accommodated five mangoes, so there tended to be a lot of wastage because of the odd number. Repackaging the fruit so it came in boxes of six has saved the company around £60,000 – all thanks to a suggestion made to the company’s “Tell Justin” ideas scheme, which has been running since 2004 and has so far generated around 57,000 ideas” (Personnel Today).
- Appraisal Schemes – on an ongoing basis it is important to have open and frank discussions with your employees to:
– make sure that their performance is aligned to your business plan;
– highlight and provide support for any development needs that they may
have;
– understand whether they have any concerns in any particular areas.
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