Your
biggest controllable cost is turnover, so how do you reinvigorate your work
teams?
- You hire only people with an affinity for learning. Then you teach them something new each and every shift. Then you share your company’s progress and goals every quarter to the team
- Hire outstanding supervisors who have skills of inspiration, discipline, and accountability
- Prune the deadwood on you team on a regular basis
In my experience, “carrots” don’t work. They reinforce only the
employees who are already the most engaged and productive in your restaurant or
store. Plus most operators create programs that reward individual
accomplishment while they preach the importance of teamwork. You’re better
off creating a stronger culture in which low performance is simply not an
option. To paraphrase Paul Marciano: “Recognition and reward programs fail
because they are programs.” These programs rarely lead to long-term sustainable
behavioral change because they don’t impact organizational culture. Reward
programs are little more than camouflage for ineffective management. If you
want to truly motivate your performers to do better, hold those who are not
doing their job accountable. Do you want to know what “Quality” is? Conformance
to requirements.
Jim Sullivan