Listen to Your People and Save Your Business

This morning, to get a little light relief from ironing out the finer details of wedding planning, I decided to watch one of my favourite work-related shows, Undercover Boss. 

I've watched this show many times and each time I am amazed at how surprised the big boss is by their findings. So much so that it reminds me of why I started out in business on my own in the first place; my goal has always been and always will be:

'Give everyone in your organisation a voice. Only then will you get the best from your people.'

This week the focus of the show was Tower Hamlets Council and it saw the Chief Executive (CE) going undercover to work as one of the frontline workers. As the CE quoted: 

"Working undercover on the frontline you see it as it is rather than how they want you to see it. People put on a show when they know you are a more senior person."

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Council workers perform many essential services for the residents in a borough; from pest control and waste management to child protection services, from libraries and doctors surgeries to meals on wheels. However, many of these services have suffered in recent years due to budget cuts and massive strains on resources. 

Budget cuts are no new thing to local councils in the UK, and they are always fraught with dispute and despair whenever they arise. Unfortunately, they are often necessary; the real problems arise when the wrong cuts are made. 

One of the stops for the CE this week was accompanying a female care worker who'd been delivering meals on wheels to elderly patients for 33 years. She was an inspiration, showing the utmost care, respect and genuine concern for each and every patient she visited. Unfortunately, due to budget cuts, the time she spent with her elderly clients was cut dramatically to meet demand for services. 

The CE recognised that the situation visibly pained the long-standing worker, and he noted that she did her best to arrange her deliveries to spend the longest time possible with the people who needed her most. His revelation was: 

“’Meals on Wheels’ is more than just delivering a meal and walking away.” 

To address the issue, the CE asked the care worker to join a new committee he had designed to ensure the care of clients was of top priority. He told the care worker that her insight was vital to making the project a success. 

We always need budget cuts; change occurs in organisations and money is frequently required elsewhere to meet the current internal or external needs of the company - it's a fact of life. However, by making blind choices about changes required in organisations without speaking to the frontline workers first, senior leaders are bound to make incorrect decisions. 

The most important thing to recognise in any organisation is the need to understand the consequences of our actions. Yes, we are running businesses, but in many cases, we are also providing services to those who need it most. 

There are too many companies that operate without talking to the people on the shop floor. In some ways, this is helpful because it takes the emotion out of business and allows us to make strong financial decisions, but is that what business should really be about? Are we saying, as a race, we value financial gain more than the needs of our own? 

Business is more than making money; business is about people. 

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Fight the Back to Work January Blues

Waking up on Monday the 5th January and not having to drag myself into an the dreaded open plan office, reminded me that doing a job I love, from the comfort of my own home, was definitely the right choice for me. Of course, freelance working is not for everyone, but the relief I felt on that traditional 'January Blues' day got me thinking.

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How many people in the Western world woke up that morning to jobs they hate, doing things that do not make the best of their skills or talents? I checked the papers and, although stats vary, some suggested about 80% of us hate our jobs. Everywhere you look there are adverts for 'new year, new career', or for extravagant holidays aimed at giving us something to look forward too.

Surely it doesn't need to be this way... I like the winter holidays as much as the next person - with all that food, family, festive cheer and a beer or two - but the deep depression many of us feel in January is just too much to bare! My view is going back to work needn't be such a blow. Here are a few ways employers and employees can ease the return to work pain:

1. Employees - Take Responsibility - employees have a responsibility to think about what they enjoy and what they dislike about their jobs and to relay this back to managers. Often as an employee we assume that our managers know what we like and dislike and what our strengths and weaknesses are. Some of the better managers will know this about their team members, others will struggle to know and develop their people. Employees have a responsibility to shape their role in the best way they can.

Things to, consider are:

• What are the skills of your team members - could you swap some of your tasks with them to ensure you are all doing things that best match your skills?
• Who enjoys what most? Could you share the most enjoyable tasks or engage each other in tasks and projects that are interesting?  
• Are you overloaded and some people in your team seem to twiddle their thumbs for half of the day? Could you shift some projects to other people in your team? 

Back in the early days of the industrial revolution people would practice job rotation to avoid boredom in their roles. Graduates often have the opportunity to spend six months in one department before moving roles to spend the next six months in another department, and they always rave about how interesting and challenging the variation is. Why should grads have all of the interesting work?!


If your manager isn't supportive of your wants / needs and growth, it may be time to go above their head or perhaps look at another role. If you're really that unhappy, it's time to take action.






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2. Managers - Take Responsibility - you have a responsibility to support your people in their growth. You can either do this in their current role, shape their role into something suitable for them or move them into a role that works. If you find they are not suited to their role or are underperforming, it's your duty to find out why. Talk to them to find out what's going on and see if it's possible to support them through their issues.

3. Performance Management Matters - often, in roles where people feel undervalued and therefore underperform, it's because the work they do is not reflected in the reward they receive. A good performance management system ties the work a person performs to the reward they get. This is done through having an expertly designed job descriptions, competency frameworks and review and reward structures that match the competencies.

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4. Coaching and Mentoring - when done well, coaching can help people to see things in themselves that they wouldn't ordinarily see. Often our ways of doing things are so ingrained we cannot see an issue with how we go about doing something. It's not until someone else watches us and suggests another way that we see the error of ours.

Mentoring helps the often more junior folk in an organisation to learn from the those that have been there. It's a great way for people to see how things are done and a great way for more senior folk to impart knowledge. This is one way to help people to learn management skills too.

5. Professional Management Training - Too many managers get to their position based on merit from their technical work. It's great to be promoted and to have recognition for good work, but the skills required to be a manager are often very different from those required to be a technical expert. Management training and coaching is a great way to learn what is needed. However, some of us just aren't suited to management. If this is you - but you've been put in the position anyway - make sure you talk to your managers about your issues or dislikes, perhaps there is another way to define your role.

6. Make Work Fun! - Last but by no means least, January is cold, dark and somewhat depressing, so arrange some fun activities for your employees. A couple of simple ideas are:

• Bring healthy (or unhealthy if preferred!) treats into the office every Friday. 
• Allow people to ease back into the working weeks by giving them an early finish for a few days. 
• Be kind to people, we all take a while to get going again!

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Work is a necessity for most of us, there's no getting away from that, but there are ways to make it more interesting, challenging and engaging. Remember, there are always different ways of doing things - nothing has to be set in stone. Think differently, and your actions will be different.

Happy New Year everyone!