Employer and Employee Relationship

What do you expect as a manager from your line level associates? What behaviors do you welcome in your environment?  As business owners, how do you set the level? Where do you set the bar? Now with those questions asked, do you follow the same behaviors that you set? Do your employees see you follow the same rules you enforce?

The problem that we face as business owners is the same thing that parents face with their small children. We tell our associates to do as we say not as we do. And as we should expect, that causes issues within our workplace. If associates see the managers or business owners violating certain rules or procedures and then get angry when they are told to follow them.

For example, here is a situation that recently took place. There was a desk that everyone seemed to want to sit at to do their work. This desk was designed to sit down with customers and go over the experience they would like in their homes. So, as managers sat at this desk, visible to all customers walking in and out of the department, employees also thought it would be a good idea to sit at this desk to do their work. They were wrong. As soon as they sat down, managers were breathing all over their backs making them get up and serve customers. Of course, this did not fly with the employees. They all get angry based off the Do As I Say Not as I Do philosophy.  This caused a major rift in the employer and employee relationship.

Here is another example for you business owners/mangers. When we are in our self storage facilities helping our managers, how do we answer the phones? Do we provide the same customer service that we ask the managers to provide? There was a call that was heard that involved a district manager answering the phone due to the facility having an overwhelming amount of business. The district manager was supposed to deliver five star quality service to the caller as they have ensured happens from their employees. The call lasted for 25 seconds and involved the caller asking for a particular size and wanted the price. The price was given without asking further questions, and then the caller hung up the phone. Where was the five star quality? It was heard that the distract manager then turned and disciplined a manager for not giving quality service. Talk about sending mixed signals!
 
So as business owners, what do we do from here? Do we go back into our environments and make the necessary changes? Do we allow the same behaviors that are hindering our business to continue? It is time to access your business as well as yourself to ensure that you are doing what is necessary to create a partnership between you, your managers and your line level employees. Without that trust between your employees and you, your business could still succeed, but will it profit as much as it could?

Written by Joel Little

Storage Concierge is your premier Storage, Storage Unit, Car Storage, RV Storage, Furniture Storage, Boat Storage, Yacht Storage and Self Storage Finder.

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Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.

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