Greetings!    

When work is done by rote (or unconsciously) the mind wanders and without realizing it, steps are missed, corners are cut and job quality suffers.

Sometimes, without realizing it, employers actually encourage complacency in their people.  How? Through inadequate training. When a new person is hired, typically someone will show them around and show them what to do in their job.

It doesn't really matter what kind of job it is, usually someone will teach a new hire how to do whatever is required for their specific position.

The problem is, rarely does anyone ever educate the new employee about WHY they are doing what they're doing.  Or HOW their work impacts the next person, the company or the company's clients/customers.

You see, mostly we train people to behave like robots.  Not intentionally, but that's where we end up.  Robots don't need to be conscious in their work.  That's not to say they don't do an adequate job, but often they do the same thing, day after day, without thinking about it, often without being able to recognize (or care) if there is something wrong, and usually without any 'buy in' for the success of the company for whom they work.

To combat complacency and to cultivate better employees, it is necessary to take the time to explain the reason you hired him or her in the first place.  

The first thing to educate employees on is: "Who is my customer?"  In reality, every person the employee works with is their customer.  That most often does not mean the ultimate customer of your business, but the person who comes after the employee in the process.

The second thing to educate employees on is:  "What are the inputs and outputs of my job process?"  In other words, what prompts you to do your job and what happens after you complete your task for the next person down the line?  Something triggers an employee to do their job (receipt of goods, paperwork, task list) and someone else receives the benefit of the job they just did.  It's a circle... trigger work, do work, trigger work for the next person.  These triggers need to be explained.

Finally, the most important thing to educate new employees about is: "WHY am I doing this job".  What benefit is there for the job I was hired to do?  How does it impact the employer?  How does it impact the next person in the process? How does it impact the company's ultimate clients/customers? The employee needs to clearly understand how the quality of the job they do can positively or negatively impact the next person in the process. 

Often, because we're so busy, we don't make the time to spend educating people about their job inputs and outputs; we just think 'get them working and we'll educate them later' but the lack of adequate training during the hiring orientation will hurt you in the long run.

When your employees are fully trained, not just in their job process but in all these other ways, you will find your employees are conscious, committed and that they actually want to help you reach the company's goals no matter the type - revenue, growth or community outreach.  

Most importantly, you will have better morale because employees almost always take more pride in the job they do once they fully understand why they're doing it.   

Avoid complacency (or the possibility for complacency) - train your employees correctly from the moment they walk through your door....

Our Favorite Things...

Asana Task Management 

One of the banes of any business are the countless details that pop up on any given day.  How do you keep track of them?  Do you find yourself creating task lists for your employees?  Manually?  Or do you find that you lack visibility to what your employees are doing?

 

We had that problem too but even more so in that our

clients often call me for things they need their Concierge to do.  While this is great and clients are welcome to call either myself or their assigned Concierge at any time; my issue is that their action items are stuck in my head

taking up space until I find out they are done.

 

To automate and streamline our 'to do' lists for the entire company, we are now using Asana (www.asana.com).

   

Asana is a free shared task list for our team. It's the place we use to plan, organize, and keep our 'to do' lists in sync.

 

Asana works similar to Google Calendar, another group application we use.  With Asana, we can assign a task to one of our people and/or can mark it off when we know a task is complete.

 

Likewise, each employee can add and manage their own 'to do' lists and we have visibility to them as well.  One of the really nice benefits is, just like with Google, Asana will email the next days' task list for your review.  Plus, being a web application, Asana is available to our people via their iPads while they're on the go! 

 

Asana seems to be a fairly robust application with far more capabilities than just simple task management, but that's all we need for now.  If you too would like global visibility to your employee's task lists, take a look at

Asana.... One of our favorite things....

 

["Our Favorite Things" gives us an opportunity to share people, places, events and things that we truly love and that you might too.  We have no business affiliation with any company or individual featured here.  We just want to share good things with you and if our recommendations help build business for someone else or saves you time or money, GREAT!!!]

• Housekeeping
• Window Cleaning
• Service AC units
• Pest Control (if not already in place)
• Tree trimming, lawn scalping & overseed
• Power Washing of the exterior of the home
• Power Washing of the patios, walkways and driveway
• Carpet Cleaning
• Tile cleaning (interior and/or exterior)
• Golf cart service
• Upholstery cleaning (inside and patio cushions)
• Have your BBQ grill cleaned
• Change out smoke alarm batteries
• Install CO detectors (it's the law in CA)

Keeping your home in tip top shape is OUR business and we love that you allow us to do so.  Please be sure to keep us informed about your arrivals and departures!