Employers and Employees

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  No one likes to work.  Especially when that work involves interacting with irate or even ignorant people, back breaking heavy lifting, and standing on your feet for hours on end for minimum wage.  People like money though, so some people get a job to earn it.  Others find ways to get money just to sit on their asses, but many people are willing and able to do an honest days work for a paycheck.

I've worked several jobs, primarily in retail and sales.  Before I take any job, I usually determine whether the amount I'm being paid justifies the work I'll be doing.  Nine dollars an hour?  Yeah, I'm willing to work four hour shifts dealing with customers and lifting boxes to stock shelves.  Not hard, and to some extent, I enjoy it.

What I don't enjoy is doing that stuff while other people, who are paid exactly the same as I am, get to stand around and gossip WHILE I'm doing that work.  I'm a self-motivated worker.  I prefer to at least make it look like I'm busy doing something while I get paid, and nine out of ten times I actually am trying to get stuff done because I take pride in doing something to justify my paycheck.  In other words, I work hard for the money.  Yet, most of the people I work with don't.  Unless they are confronted with a task directly, they will simply stand around, talking about non-work related topics, or playing on their phone or reading a book in clear view of customers.  To me, that's not only highly unprofessional, it's also an insult to those that would be happy to take their job. (To those of you that are unemployed and seeking work, that would be you.)

Worse yet, those who are managers seem to do nothing about it.  They walk by, say nothing, and don't even comment on their lack of activity, even when it's been going on for over an hour.  So, because of this, I would like to declare a list of things to remember for both employers and employees.  And yes, I have seen all of these happen at the various places I've worked at.

Employees

1: You are there to work.  Do something.  Anything.  Help a customer, stock a shelf, file some paper work...whatever your job entails, do it.  Everything done for the day?  Get ahead.  Do stuff that would normally be done tomorrow.  Can't find anything to do?  Ask your boss if there is anything you can take off their hands.  Not only does this show that you are a hard worker, thus if they need to get rid of someone you are less likely to be let go, but it also makes time go by faster.

2: Phones, books, games, and anything else non-work related...don't use them at work.  Checking the time on your phone is one thing, but you should not be on Facebook or playing a game while working. Do it on your break.  Do it when you get home.  But when you are on the clock, work.  You aren't getting paid to play (unless you are a QA game tester...then I guess you are, but it's towards a purpose)

3: If you have clients or customers, don't talk about them or other clients/customers around them.  It's unprofessional.  Period.  Same goes for bad mouthing your co-workers in front of them.

4: Speak English (or if you are in another country, whatever the native language of that country is) to your co-workers during business hours.  Customers don't want to hear you yammering on in another language for two reasons:  One, if you start breaking Rule 3, it's even more of an insult that you thought you could hide it by speaking in a foreign tongue and two, it's unprofessional towards your fellow coworkers who may not speak the language.  Also, eventually, you are going to say something out of line that a customer or coworker is going to know, and they are going to call you on it.

5: Whatever your dress code is for work, you should be two steps above it at all times.  Many of the places I've worked had a dress code of "uniform shirt and khaki pants, belt and black shoes."  That does not mean a wrinkled right out of the laundry shirt that you keep untucked, khaki colored pants that have 20 pockets on them, a belt with flames on it, and black boots with ten straps on them going up to your knees.  Professionalism people...remember it.

Employers

1: Chain of command.  The people you employ are there to work for you.  If they are not working on something, then give them something to work on.  You don't have to micro manage them, but whenever you see an associate standing around doing nothing for 10 minutes, then tell them to do something.  If you are the boss of the place, give the department heads a list of tasks you would like done daily.  And let your associates know that they can express comments and concerns through this chain of command.  A low level employee should not be contacting a CEO directly.

2: Delegate.  You hire underlings for a reason.  They are there to do the menial tasks while you take care of the higher priority ones.  Store managers?  You should be worrying about ordering stock, money, and walking through the store to see what needs to get done so the store is as perfect as it can get.  The associates should be the ones doing things like stocking, cleaning, and your go-to guys should be doing things like resetting sections.

3: Reward.  Every job has employees that skate by doing bare minimum and others that work hard every day.  Let the latter know that their work is appreciated.  Tell them "Hey, I appreciate all this work you do." every so often.  If you can, give them something small.  Gift cards, free product, a paid day off...something that shows them that their hard work is not for nothing.  If you make it public, then the slackers might start working harder to try to earn it.  And don't just give it to a random person just so one person isn't always winning it.  If one guy is always winning, give it to number two once in a while, or even number three if those two guys are always at the top.  If you give it to the worst person in the place, then the reward becomes meaningless.

4: Reprimand.  Those people that do nearly nothing? Reprimand them.  Give them verbal or written reprimands saying that they need to work harder.  Evaluations don't come often enough to really make an impact.  Usually those people that skate by need to have someone on their ass pushing them.  And if they don't get it after a while, then those written reprimands will prevent you from being sued when you fire them.

5: Communicate.  Talk to those guys below you.  Tell your section leaders or your head clerks or your department heads what is going on.  The best boss I ever had carried a notepad on him at all times, and he wrote down everything.  Twice daily he would get all the senior staff together and tell them everything and what he wanted to be done about it.  The senior staff would then pass whatever was necessary along to us at the low level and things got done.  In fact, the store was almost always perfect because of that.

6: Train.  Don't assume that because someone does something once they will remember it every time from then on.  And if someone has never done something before, don't just take over for them.  Make a note to train them on it.  It doesn't need to be extravagant training, but quick training on something every so often is great for a refresher.

7: Promote.  Take note of who are your best workers.  Anytime an opportunity comes up for promotion, ask them if they want it.  Put in a good word for them, and even push to get them promoted.  That's why they work hard.  They want to advance.  If nothing is coming up for a while, give them a leg up.  Train them on how to do higher level stuff.  Give them the opportunity to do it themselves under supervision once in a while.  This way when they do get promoted, they can hit the ground running.

*****

So, to all the lower employees out there, work hard.  Try to work harder than anyone else where you work.  And if everyone is just slacking off, raise the complaint to your boss.  If your boss doesn't care whether you slack off or work hard, continue to work hard but look for a job where your work will be appreciated.

And to employers out there, you should only want the best workers.  No body is perfect, but when you know someone is working hard and trying to make something for themselves, help them along.  Help them move forward.  It's how you gain loyal workers who will advance your business ten-fold.  And cut off your dead weight, because it's not the pay thats going to make your good employees leave.  It's your good employees noticing that their work isn't going to get them far with your company.