One of the most important aspects of a business is the employees that make it up. How are your employees doing? Do they share your vision? Do they know your business' core values? Do you have core values?
These are questions every field service business owner should ask themselves. Without knowing how your employees are doing, there is no way to gauge your business' success. There are ways to ensure that you will build for your company an awesome and yes, kick-ass team. If up until now, you've been an absentee owner, letting your employees run the place for you, it may be a bit difficult to implement new standards. Don't worry though, with communication and consistency, you're business will be a well-oiled machine in no time.
"It's not personal, it's business"
Sometimes this way of looking at business can be thought of as crass or cold. The way I look at it, most things in life are personal; your business included, but when it comes to managing people, you cannot let emotions; yours or theirs, interfere with your goals.
What I want to communicate with this point is that if you build personal relationships with your employees, it can and most likely will make business with them a little more complicated. I'm not saying you can't go out after work and have a beer or two with them, but make sure that most of your time spent with your employees is professional.
Make sure to know the line between business and personal, and try not to cross it. A good owner and manager knows where to draw that line while still developing great professional relationships with their employees.
Follow someone’s advice
Whether it’s in a peer group or a book, find someone who does what you do, and does it well. Follow a structure; It’s difficult to go at all aspects of your business alone. The advice or structure I follow is from a book called Traction, by Gino Wickman. Wickman outlines specific ways to implement consistent processes.
If you are somewhat of an island, try to get other opinions once in a while, chances are someone else knows something you don’t. A business does not have one leg of support, you need many for success and employees are one of them. Following someone else’s good advice can make the other leg much stronger than making all decisions yourself.
Have clear processes and standards
This I can confidently say is the backbone to a great and successful business. Have standards from the very start of your business and it will run smoothly if those processes are effective. If you haven’t been running on specific processes, it’s not too late! Implement processes for everything; hiring specifically is so important.
When you hire someone, take your time. Go by a slow process to get someone new on your team. Have specific steps for the interview process and hire this way every single time. You will find that the turnover will be much lower, you will keep your employees longer and they will work harder for you if you take the time to get to know who they are before you say yes.
Core Values
This falls under having standards for your field service business. This is the most basic and forgotten process to run a business by. Having core values is of the utmost importance, but having them isn’t enough. In order to be successful, these values have to be understood by every person within the business. Communication is a big part of a successful business, without it, having processes is superfluous.
Our core values here at HindSite are:
- Golden Rule: treat others the way you would like to be treated
- Always Improve
- Enjoy the work and make life better
- Have Integrity: Take responsibility for your own actions.
- Be part of a team
Our employees, managers and anyone who is a part of HindSite, all work with these values in the back of their minds. If everyone is on the same page, working towards the same goals with the same values, your business will grow successful the road will hopefully be a little smoother along the way.
Hold productive meetings
This is one of the many areas that we implement Traction here at Hindsite. Before we started using a structured system for our meetings, they were, let’s just say, less than productive. By using a consistent system for our meetings, they became much more productive and we actually reached our goals.
It is vital that everyone working for your business be on the same page. If not, chaos will no doubt ensue. The best way, I find, to make sure this is the case, is to hold weekly meetings that do just that. In his book, Wickman outlines not just weekly, but quarterly meetings as well. This is also the norm here at HindSite.
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