best management practices

3 Strategies to Help Small Business Owners Address Tardiness

The office culture in any given small business is one of a kind.  Part of the romanticism, in fact, of starting a small business, or working for one, is that the constricting rules that apply in the corporate world don’t necessarily apply in the small business.  Dress code is often thrown out the window, e-mail etiquette is all but absent, and communication is frequently casual and friendly, instead of formal and rigid.

However, the lax atmosphere of many small businesses often leads its employees to get more comfortable than they should, which can be counter-productive at best, and actively harmful at worst.

One of the most common abuses of small business protocol is tardiness.  Employees think that because the office is so cool, so hip — and most important, so forgiving — they can stretch their arrival time, sometimes up to an hour.

While your small business may not run on the same clock as a large, corporate firm, you can’t afford an hour of missed work from your employees.  At the same time, you might not want to take severe action, either because it doesn’t fit with your management style, or because you haven’t ever done it before.

The important thing to remember is that just because you run a small business doesn’t mean that you can’t have rules.  It just means that you have to find a way to enforce your rules that fits in with your business culture.  Here are some tips:

1.      Have Rules.  This might seem like an unusual rule, but you’d be surprised to find out how many small businesses never even take the time to lay out rules for things like tardiness and absenteeism.  If you don’t have any rules, get with any other executive officers in your company, and decide on some.  Then make the rules known to your employees.  It’s not a sin to have rules, or to expect your employees to show up on time.  The basic fact is that most people will take advantage of the fact that there aren’t any rules, even if they’re only doing it subconsciously.

2.       Nip Behavior in the Bud.  What frequently happens in small businesses is that a manager waits until the behavior is out of control before she takes action, often too harshly considering that she never brought it up before.  When you notice an employee is late, approach them about it.  You can make it “unofficial” but stress that being late doesn’t fit in to the company’s culture.  It’s always a good strategy to balance a criticism with a compliment, so a comment on the employee’s great work as of late, followed by a light warning would be ideal.  Remember, it’s not about making someone feel guilty.  Their behavior will change or it will not.  Your job is to remind that what your work place is all about and giving them the choice to reform themselves to fit in.

3.      Take Action.  If an employee continues to be late, take disciplinary action.  The worst thing you can do is make empty threats.  If you tell an employee that her salary will be affected if the tardiness continues, cut her salary if the tardiness continues. It’s as simple as that.  Action will always speak louder than words.  So find a disciplinary model that works, and stick to it.

Learning how to manage your employees and find the right balance between trendy office culture and formality is difficult, but with time and practice, it will get a lot easier, and you’ll find that if you let your employees know the rules — and then enforce them — they will follow them.

 

Jane Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. She writes about free background checks for Backgroundcheck.org. Questions and comments can be sent to: janesmth161 @ gmail.com

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Sculpting Positive Self-Expectations in Your Employees

In ancient Greek mythology there was a sculptor named Pygmalion who fell in love with a statue he carved, which then came to life in response to his love for it.  What does this myth have to do with managing your employees?

Everything.

Your employees come from diverse backgrounds, with different histories, psychologies, personalities, baggage, skills, and so on.  But they all share one important characteristic: responsiveness to their manager’s expectations of them.

Think of yourself as Pygmalion, the sculptor, and your employees as the marble which eventually will become a statue.

The reason the mythical sculptor’s statue came to life was because he believed in it — he knew that the sculpture was the most beautiful, most lifelike carving of a woman in all of Greece, and he exuded those thoughts while working.

Similarly, your employees will come to life and far exceed your expectations of them if you believe that they can, and communicate that message to them.

This isn’t a new finding: J. Sterling Livingston suggested this very thing in a 1988 volume of Harvard Business Review.  His thesis was that “the way managers treat their subordinates is subtly influenced by what they expect of them”; in other words, your staff’s capacity to succeed is in part determined by your belief in and expectations of them.

If you yourself don’t have confidence in one of your staff members, you are likely to express that doubt, even subconsciously, to that employee, and thereby impair her capability to do excellent work.

Of course, this does not mean that you are solely responsible for the performance of your employees.  However, it is the duty of a manager to inspire and train employees to be the best they can.  Believing in your employees is particularly inspirational to them because it give them the motivation to excel for the sake of excellence, and not out of desperation for their job.

To help sculpt positive expectations in your employees:

  • Assign them increasingly challenging work as they progress (but not before they can handle it).
  • Have monthly meetings with individual employees where you praise their successes and offer constructive feedback.
  • Group successful employees with rookie employees to establish as sense of confidence early on.
  • Make walks around the office and interact with your employees occasionally, keeping conversation positive and friendly.
  • Ask about what skills your employees would like to learn and try to find educational/developmental opportunities that match.

There is more to managing employees than simply thinking and saying good things about them —and unlike Pygmalion, you really can’t fall in love with them — but encouraging positive expectations and developing employees’ self esteem is one way that you can bring out the best in them, and in your company.

This is a guest post by Kimberly Wilson. Kimberly is from accredited online colleges, she writes on topics including career, education, student life, college life, home improvement, time management etc.

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