Joe,
Thanks for the response and I appreciate what products you provide. The company I work now for deals with the same issues. Worker shortages, constant training, maintaining high standards and keeping workers happy, all this is a delicate balance. I led a 350 man organization and everyday my battles were associated with manpower issues, training people, supervising and maintaining standards and meeting production goals. It’s not easy and the culture of your organization / business is set by the people on top. People need to trust their supervisors and leaders, they need to be empowered and must feel part of the team. Punish with caution. I never punished for mistakes, to me that was usually a function of poor training or supervision. People who bent the rules were counseled with respect, people who blatantly broke rules or negligent were disciplined. Good people are hard to find, when you find them it’s imperative they know they are appreciated and compensate them accordingly. It’s not always pay more . Sometimes it’s, take a 1/2 day or buying them lunch or just recognizing them to the rest of the team as going above and beyond. You will get more productivity out of them. You want the people who work for you to be happy. Happy workers are productive workers. It’s the leaders job to set the right environment for this to happen. Counsel you people in private, praise them in public. I beat all 4 other squadrons on my base in aircraft availability, sortie production and personnel retention by using these concepts and others.. Tell your people exactly what you expect from them and when they meet that goal reward their effort. It’s absolutely critical to the success of any organization. It’s usually always easier to fix a poor performer than it is to find hire and train a new person. You have to know your people to do this you need know what impacting those lives their family etc.. Leaders set the conditions for success and the employees make it happen. It took me 24 years of leading people to figure out the science of managing and motivating people to a unified goal.
Sorry to rant but I I wanted to share nuggets of wisdom that I’ve learned the hard way. I’m passionate about leading people.
The culture or an organization is what what makes the difference between winners and losers . In the halls of business academia we call this “Just Culture”. Just Culture means we:
1. Counsel the Human Error
2. Coach the at-risk or poor performer
3’ Punish the reckless or negligent
Independent of the outcomes!
John