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A leader is one who leads; not one who follows the whims of those led. A leader deals with needs of their followers, not their wants. A business owner must lead; otherwise whatever happens, well, happens. I was reminded of that recently and further reminded that the leader must not only lead, but must legislate. They must legislate what is acceptable and assure followers meets those standards. And they must not violate the standards themselves.
What does that mean in practice?
The leader establishes the hours the business needs to be open to attract and retain customers. Let’s say the leader decides that is eight to five, Monday through Friday. So when should workers who serve the customers need to be present? That’s where it begins to get fuzzy.
Is it okay for worker to come in at three in the morning and work until eleven? Is it okay for another one to work from five until one? And we have a CSR who has to drop their child off at school which is a long way away so they can’t begin work until ten but they make it up by working through until six in the evening. And, oh yea boss, I don’t wanta to stop and eat lunch, so I will just work on through and leave early, okay? Is it okay for another to take off Fridays so they can visit their family every weekend in another state, and, after all, we aren’t that busy anyway?
The logic usually is that since I, the worker, don’t deal with customers then as long as I put my eight hours in, then what’s the difference? After all, eight hours is eight hours. This is when the leader’s legislation is needed.
The leader, in allowing such behavior, is organizing around what workers want, not what they and the business need.
What is the business of your business? According to Al Ries, it is to attract and retain customers. Why do we have business hours? We establish hours in which to do business with customers and they usually are set at the convenience of the customer. And it is up to the leader to determine what those hours are.
Now, does it make sense for your business to open at three in the morning and close at eleven am? Does it make sense for the business to be open Thursday through Sunday and closed Monday through Wednesday? Most of us would say no. That is because we need to be available when our customers want to buy what we do. If we weren’t, then it is logical that they would go to another supplier who is open when they want to buy.
“Yea, butta,” comes the cry from the back room workers. “What’s that got to do with us? We don’t see the customer.” In many cases that is correct. An auto mechanic or press operator may not see the customer, but they do serve the customer.
My wife, Pamela, has a great analogy for this. She said, “In football games, the field goal team is not used that much; maybe three or four times in a game at most and usually, but not always, in the third or fourth quarter. So why does the field goal kicker have to show up for the first half and just sit on the bench? Coach, I’ll come in at halftime and do my job but there’s no need for me to just sit here.”
Or is there? It seems pretty obvious in football that you really don’t know when you will need the kicker. So when do you think you will need the typesetter or the fry cook? Do you need them during business hours or outside of business hours?
Beyond that, there is the concept of team. They call it the baseball team, the football team, the soccer team or the basketball team ya da. Do you have a printing team? Or do you have a collection of individuals who do their job and nothing more? “After all, boss, you pay me to do my job and I do it. So what’s the beef?”
A team is supportive of each other meaning we don’t do just our job. We support, interface with and even do tasks of others when appropriate. The points that go up on the scoreboard aren’t number of impressions; rather are total sales. We aren’t individuals; we are members of a team. The team puts up the sales number; the press operator doesn’t by themselves.
Three obvious issues arise when we have workers working odd hours by themselves.
First is injury. While there is no OSHA regulation prohibiting a worker to work around dangerous equipment alone; OSHA does have the capability of issuing a post-incident finding. In essence it follows the logical that, “while there’s no rule against it, obviously it was dangerous for management to allow the practice to exist because the injury occurred and was made worse because there was no one able to assist the injured worker, therefore a significant fine will be levied.”Ouch.
Second is inefficiency, which is the biggest issue. Press operators need new plates which are issued by the prepress guy or they catch a typo that needs correction; so they take the job off the press and set up another one or wait for the prepress guy to show up. Bindery worker cuts a job wrong and it has to be redone so it waits for others to show up losing valuable time.
Production worker has a question that goes unanswered. Prepress person needs to tell the press operator something significant about the job but since they won’t see them before its run; tries to write it down and that usually doesn’t work that well. CSR, who works alone covering the phones until five, gets a call from your biggest customer and can only say, “I dunno, it will have to wait until morning.”
Third is the less likely but always possible event that you need the field goal kicker to be able to respond to a significant customer request. You need to set some type, plate, print and cut it before the customer leaves on a flight tonight.
So, we need to field the team on the battlefield when the customer wants us to be there. You decide when that is and get workers there. And if you are wrong and need to change hours, then change the hours and get your team there then.
Okay, now let me address what many of you are concerned about. I’ve got a great equipment operator who works from three am to eleven. You may be thinking, “Since I’ve allowed him to do that in the past, how can I change?” One script for that is, “Ronnie, I need you to begin working everyday from eight to five beginning the first of the month. Do you have any questions?”
Then deal with the “yea butta’s” by leading the worker to a proper conclusion. “Yea, butta I have to drop the kids off to school.” “Okay, so what can you do about that?” “There’s nothing I can do about that because I have to do it that way.” “I am sorry that there is nothing you can do about it, but our business requires us to be available to our customers from eight to five and that means your job requires you to be here between eight and five. I know we have had other arrangements in the past, but we’re changing that. So are you sure there’s nothing you can do about it?”
And yes, the bottom line is whether the person chooses to conform to the job so they can continue on the team or not. It’s not you being hard, mean or unreasonable. It is about you legislating what the worker needs to do. They may want to work from three to eleven; but what they need is a good paycheck and job security and that means they need to work from eight to five so the business can do what it needs to do and that is acquire and retain customers.
What if you don’t need to be available to customers from eight to five but can accommodate the worker’s request to work from eight-thirty to five? Change the hours if you wish. But it is up to the leader to legislate hours. Workers don’t get to choose when they want to work. The leader must decide and then legislate. You can have the most perfect worker in the world on your team; but if they aren’t present when you need them, then they are a zero and the team suffers.
Getting workers to work at appropriate times is the first test of the leader. If you can’t do that, you will be unable to direct them in other ways. The way you get them there is simple. We have a job from eight until five, Monday through Friday. I understand you would prefer to work from three in the morning until eight; but I don’t have a job that meets that schedule. Would you be interested in the job we have?
My next article will discuss other areas where the leader must legislate.
Other articles in this 4 part series
Part I, Leading Means Legislating Click Here
Part II, Leader Legislates What Workers Do Click Here
Part III, Leader Legislates an Adult Working Environment Click Here
Part IV, Leader Even Legislates Customer Behavior Click Here
Or search on “legislate” in our website’s search engine.
