What to Do When Employees Just Don't Listen
"I can't get my technicians to do X..."
I see this posted all over Facebook and receive calls like this from clients WAAAAYYYY too often. If you find yourself thinking something along these lines, you have four choices:
Keep banging your head into the wall without forcing the issue. I don't recommend this one.
Change your requirements based on what employees are willing to do, and be ready to accept the consequences (compliance, missing data, lower customer satisfaction, or whatever else X was implemented to address).
Ensure employees have been trained and have the tools to do X correctly. Bonus points for explaining WHY X is required.
Enforce accountability. Not to be overly dramatic about it, but I guarantee that after you fire the first person for refusing to do X, the rest will know you're serious about it.
For ongoing and scalable policy implementation, Brand leaders must be prepared to "sell" employees on every expectation, rule, policy, and process you require them to follow.
If the employees do not see the value/purpose of the rules established to represent the Brand, do you seriously think they will follow them while unsupervised in front of the customer?
And if your company's leaders and managers do not believe in the value/purpose of the rules, why should the employees?
This comes back to the Employee Manager Cycle:
Set Expectations → Adequately Train & Provide Resources → Trust (but Verify) Expectations are Met → Hold Accountability When Expectations are Not Met
Repeat this cycle as necessary to eliminate flaws in expectations and/or employees who refuse to follow the Brand mission.
Need help getting your employees in line with the company mission and expectations? Contact My HR Guy today!
