Are Your Employees Engaged?

In our Value Builder System, we use a set of very specific questions, known as the Gallup 12, to help gauge employee satisfaction within a business. One of the questions asked is, “I know what is expected of me at work.” Employees are asked to rank their answer in a range from strongly disagree to strongly agree.

This week we ask you to stop and think about how your employees would answer that question. And more importantly to ask what does your business have in place to make expectations clear.

Small businesses are notorious for having employees fill multiple roles. Often, employees need to step in and help when and where they are needed. For instance, a customer service employee might also be doing administrative work like bookkeeping, or ordering supplies. Having multiple roles can easily create confusion and, in turn, diminish employee satisfaction.

Even if you only have one employee, it’s important to define what the company expects from them. To create clear expectations, consider:

Creating a Functional Org Chart. Most small businesses find traditional organizational charts to be lacking and disheartening to employees. We’ve had clients express concern that with a traditional org chart, employees might request or feel they deserve a higher salary as they fill two or even three roles shown on a traditional org chart.

In many small businesses, the work of certain roles isn’t enough to fill one position. We change the game and encourage clients to use a Functional Org Chart. Focusing on functions instead of roles changes the conversation to center around the work that needs to be done within the business.

Beefing up your Position Descriptions. It’s important to clearly define what work is to be done, but also the standards of how you expect the work to be done. Many job descriptions are lacking descriptive language or are outdated. Take the time to make sure your job descriptions clearly define what work is to be done and how the work needs to be done.

For example, for an employee with a sales role, the Position Description should clearly define how many hours need to be spent prospecting or even how many quotes need to be completed each week.

Documenting your systems. Systems clear up confusion on what someone should do, when they should do it, and how the work should be done. We often tout the benefits of having systems, but creating employee satisfaction is one benefit that doesn’t get as much attention. People thrive when they have structure. Systems take away the guess work and free people up to put the best of who they are into the work they do.

Contact us today to learn more about our ready-to-go structures for engaging your people.