The answer to five simple questions will go a long way toward creating a business environment that makes your pest control company a great place to work.
Employee morale is difficult to quantify, but a key factor in a company’s performance. If morale is low it can result in a range of corporate ills, including employee turnover, poor customer retention and decreased profi tability. If morale is high, however, the opposite is true.
But as a businessowner often insulated from frontline service personnel, how do you effectively assess employee morale at your company? It’s not that difficult if you’re up to the challenge. We call it the “Tell-Me Tool,” and businessowners who use it invariably see an increase in both revenues and overall profi tability. It’s challenging, however, because many owners seem to prefer keeping their heads in the sand as opposed to staying in touch with their employees’ morale.
It’s a simple, five-question form we asked employees to complete every Friday afternoon. The answers come directly to the CEO, bypassing supervisors and other managers, so that every employee knows he has a direct contact with me.
December 05, 2007 "Don't Sweat The Small Stuff - Share It!"
Every entrepreneur I’ve ever worked with has the same primary challenge — there aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything they want to accomplish. Some people, of course, are micromanagers who really don’t want to give up control of any part of their business. Others would be delighted to share responsibility but don’t know how to make it happen. In either case, creating clear “Guidelines for Action” can empower your staff to make day-to-day decisions that minimize the stress in your life, free up your time — and increase your profitability.
Assuming you’ve already written a clear Mission Statement and have an exciting vision for where your firm is going (see PCT, October 2007, page 111), a simple set of guidelines will show your team how to run your business.
We stress “simple” because complicated guidelines can quickly become confusing. Think of them as the Ten Commandments. If God can tell us how to live in 10 succinct commands, we can tell our staff how to run our business in no more than 10 guidelines.
Does your pest management firm create an environment that keeps employees happy and productive? If not, you’re missing out on a win-win for everyone.
If you’ve ever doubted that the phrases “make more money” and “have more fun” belong in the same sentence, here’s proof.
New research shows that companies where people love to work, shop and invest have outperformed their competition by a 3:1 ratio over the last 10 years. Those companies — detailed in a book titled “Firms of Endearment” — were also three times as profitable for their owners than the companies profiled in the book “Good to Great,” where companies were selected primarily on their profitability.
And obviously, the people who run those well-loved companies are having a lot more fun. They’re part of a winning team rather than spending all their time being the “go-to” person for any problem that their employees, customers and partners can’t solve on their own.
While the research focuses on larger, publicly held companies, the simple concepts work even more quickly for business owners who don’t have to answer to multiple layers of managers or stockholders. They work if you’re making money, but would like to make more of it — or if you would really rather have more free time to do the other things you love most.
