It would be nice if everything was always smooth sailing in your business. Unfortunately, that isn't reality. There are all sorts of pitfalls lurking out there that can derail your success. You have to manage your inventory, outperform your competition and of course, you have to manage and motivate your employees. Just dealing with the basics can be tough enough, add in more challenging situations and maintaining your success can get really rough. That's why today we're providing some tips on how to handle employee issues. Keep reading to learn more about employee management and how Stockpile small business inventory management solution can make your job easier.
Set clear standards. When you started your business you may have been the sole employee. It's not hard to enforce work standards when you're the only one working. Even as you added an employee or two, it may not have seemed necessary to discuss standards for work behavior. Every business owner and manager hopes that the employees they hire will be a good fit for the company and perform as expected in their new position. This is not, however, always the case. That's why it is important to have clear standards and expectations and to have gone over these with new hires. Clearly stating what you expect does more than notify employees of what they should do, it gives you concrete points to discuss when performance falls short. You can point out which specific standards the employee is failing to meet and indicate the level of performance that you expect. If they fail to improve you then have grounds for termination.
Empower employees. You are the owner of the business, not the employee's referee. Don't put yourself in a position where it's up to you to get involved in each and every conflict that may arise. By empowering employees to handle some issues on their own you are freeing up your time to focus on other matters. Most minor issues will be resolved by the parties involved and you may never even hear about them. Because you have set clear standards, both parties will know what you expect. Neither one can claim that other is being unreasonable or allowing their own judgement to cloud the issue. Chances are, if an issue does come to your attention, it is because employees were unable to work it out and it really is time for you to step in and take action.
Don't just be the enforcer. Don't make the mistake of assuming that having empowered employees means that you can just be the enforcer though. If you only get involved when things are going very, very badly it can impact your employees's impression of you. They may see you as a negative authority figure that they only hear from when there are serious problems. Remember to also offer praise and acknowledge employees that are going above and beyond in their position. That way they will have positive associations with you, as well. Recognizing great performance can also be very motivating and may help you avoid some negative employee situations altogether.
For more tips on employee management, check out some of our previous posts.
Inventory Issues Are Solved When You Use Stockpile Inventory Management Solution
Dealing with employee issues takes time, and we all know that can be in short supply when you are building your small business. Lucky for you, there's Stockpile. Stockpile inventory management solution takes the headaches out of small business inventory management, saving you time and money. With Stockpile, it's easy to track inventory within a single location or across multiple locations. Adding item records is quick and easy because Stockpile is fully customizable. We don't believe in one size fits all solutions, that's why we designed Stockpile so that you can choose which fields to include in item records. We know that what matters to a scuba shop won't apply to a sandwich shop and vice versa. You create the system that works best for you. Running reports is simple. With Stockpile you can access the data you need without the fuss. Plus, Stockpile is mobile compatible which means you can access your data anytime from anywhere. Using Stockpile inventory management solution is easy, getting by without it is not. What are you waiting for? Try Stockpile today!
