Happy employees will help your business thrive | SmartPlanet

This ISN'T News

In my first 'major' business - ie, major for me - I had a crew of 17 men for a hair under 20 years. We put work in a dozen countries. I detest policys, so we had very few of them - a total of 6 or 7. The ones we had made Sense. Such as: "There is no pecking order here. There's Carol & the rest of you. If you have a problem you can't work out on your own in adult manner, SEE THE BOSS so we can fix it." And: "You were hired because you are an adult. ADULT behavior is expected here." And - "WE are 'the company'. If you steal from 'the company', you steal from yourself as well as the rest of us. Do it enough & no one will have a job here." & - "If you come here with alcohol in you & I find out, you will be fired. If you bring alcohol here, I will kill you, resurrect you, & then fire you. If you come here with drugs in you, you will be fired. If you bring drugs on the premises, I will kill you, resurrect you, & repeat until I'm too tired to do it again, & then I will fire you. Never think I'm kidding about this." I told them all, "The building has electricity & heat 24 hours a day. If you like working 2 a.m. - whenever, that's up to you, so long as you get your work done to spec & on time. No visitors unless they're cleared ahead of time, and no shenanigans. Keep the door locked if you're working here during non-business hours. If you need to take time off, let us know if we're close to deadline; otherwise, just let us know when you'll be back. If it's an emergency, leave a note & go; don't fret about it. Keep in touch while you're gone." Funniest darned thing - in 20 years, I lost 3 to quitting; 2 because their wives got really good jobs too far away for them to commute & 1 who, at the tender age of 63, was inspired by my methods to open his own shop. He was sad about us having to compete until I told him, "Hank, there will be times when you will need work & we'll need another subcontractor. And there may be times when we will need work & you will need some help. We don't 'have' to eat each other to stay alive." He left a happy man, as did the other 2. In those same 20 years, I had to fire 3; 2 for closet alcoholism & 1 for trying to sabotage the shop. The saboteur cost us an $85,000 commission in November when work would get scarce. That commission would have kept us all fed & warm thru the winter. Not only did I fire him, but as the President of a 6-state regional professional group, I notified every similar shop within 150 mile radius of us of his antics, & last anyone heard, he was stocking shelves at WalMart. He was let go in front of the entire crew, & they all knew why, because I have never been one to mince words. When I went to Chamber of Commerce meetings, literally everyone else would be wailing about how they couldn't get good help. I obviously never had that problem & the reason was simple - I treated my people as intelligent capable ADULT human beings & did everything I could to keep them happy because... (Duh-uh-uh..) HAPPY PEOPLE WORK HARDER & PRODUCE BETTER RESULTS. Funy thing is, it isn't hard to do because most people's wants are simple. This didn't need a study by a major university to figure out. It is basic how-to-do.

Source: http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/business-brains/happy-employees-will-help-your-business-thrive/21648

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