“If the owner of the company decided he didn’t want this store any more and he just gave it to you and your income were based on store income what would be the first things you would change?”
That’s my favorite question to ask employees when I go visit someone else’s store. If I’m there to help fill in, train, evaluate, or whatever it is that takes me somewhere that’s unusual to me. It’s amazing to hear the front liner’s ideas on what their stores need.
The majority of time the ideas are pretty good. More than half the time the ideas are easily implemented at once. And even more super-surprisingly I think only once did someone say “Pay the employees more.” We’re not a huge payer. We have entry level positions requiring no specialized education or training beyond what is gotten on the job and the base pay is low plus sales based bonuses. When I give them the hypothetical kingship they don’t give the employees a raise.
Today I asked 5 more people that question and none of them said they needed more money. They wouldn’t refuse it of course if I offered it and from what I saw at least two of them deserved more than they were getting in base pay (I’m also sure they make up for it in sales bonuses. They were great with customers.) And the ideas they DID come up with I was able to approve and get going with just a few phone calls. The ideas were good, didn’t cost me much at all to do and it is always amazing to see how much an employee’s attitude will change if they feel listened to… if they feel like their input matters… if they feel like someone cares what they have to say about how things are done… if they realize that they’re trusted.
Another surprising thing to me, and not good surprising, sad surprising… is how often employees are surprised when I ask them. Employees who have been at a store over a year, over two years… and nobody’s ever asked for their input before. They almost never put me on hold or don’t have an answer. It’s a question they’ve thought about. It’s something they’ve rolled around in their head when they’re working an overnight shift. How exhausting must it be for a manager to do all the thinking and not ever ask their employees for input? Why would any manager do that?
Sure, there are some top-down things I do and I have to do them. I’m still a boss. I get that part. But that doesn’t mean it’s all one-way, top-down, or that I never ask the people doing the front-line work day in and out what I can do to make their job better. Just the opposite. The more I can help them be more effective the more work I can get out of them. I’m not completely altruistic in this. I’m their manager. The more I can help them accomplish the better we all do. I’m trying to get as much out of them as I can get and have them grow with the company and move up and out. Ideally we’ll continue to grow and we’ll need managers and I’d love to provide them all from my area. So, I ask how I can help them and do what I can to help them be more effective and then I work to get it done for them.
The What would you do if it were your store? by Rich Griffith, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
