By MARK RIFFEY for the Flathead Beacon
Ahhh, summer solstice. We revel in these long days of sunlight in part because we can enjoy our favorite summer pastimes after leaving work for the day.
For some companies, summer is a time to coast, or at least do little more than get by until September since so many staff member vacations are on the summer calendar. Because of this, it can feel like nothing big happens during the summer months.
Yet for many tourist-based businesses, it’s go time. All the marketing, prep, process / system building, cleanup and training are front and center. For others, it’s marketing / prep / analysis time. For retail, it’s often prep time for fall & winter holidays, working on marketing calendars, orders, e-commerce updates, etc.
No matter what business you’re in and what summer does to your workload – summer is a great time to implement improvements that help your staff produce their best work. The return on investment is high and in most cases, the cost is fairly low.
Shedding TEERs
I use an acronym called TEER to describe the most common ways to improve staff performance and results.
TEER stands for Training, Equipment, Environment, Roadblocks.
Training is a fairly obvious one and includes not only skill, process and equipment training, but personal development as well.
Equipment is a great way to improve staff productivity. Have you entered a hotel and had the desk personnel ask you to pardon them for being so slow because they were waiting an interminable time for the check-in computers?
Such frustrations are reflected in their interaction with guests, and can produce mistakes because the check-in desk staff may hurry to make up for that slow computer when it does respond. If your budget is limited, update these machines first vs. that computer in the back office. The back office computer has a much lower daily impact on guest experience, despite being slow when running the nightly audit.
Environment is primarily about the space where your staff spend most of their day. It could be a desk, cubicle, home office, auto parts counter, warehouse or mechanic’s bay. Is their environment optimized for performance and quality?
An office environment can often be transformed by a second (or larger) computer monitor, regardless of the work being performed. Other spaces can be improved simply by reducing trips to retrieve tools and materials. Simple things add up. Staffers may have suggestions that they’ve been “afraid” to make. Ask.
Roadblocks are all about doing whatever you can to eliminate the things that impede progress or productivity.
Roadblocks are often connected to the other TEER components. More often than not, roadblocks tend to be situations, paperwork and processes created by management (present and former) that simply need to be reconsidered or made more efficient. Don’t be your own worst enemy.
Forgetting management
Often times, management tends to focus on personal development and related efficiency improvements and forgets to implement them beyond the management group. This can lead to an undesirable disconnect in culture. TEER can produce solid value for management just as it does for your staff.
Do your senior managers get training to improve their skills and productivity, but not middle managers? What about the reverse? While management may not need the same training as their staff, the need is still there at every level.
Likewise, the equipment that managers use may be different then that of their staff, but better (or additional) equipment that makes them more productive is just as valuable. I mentioned the benefits provided by a larger or additional monitor earlier, which can provide equally strong improvements for managers.
As with other areas, a focus on managers’ work environment may or may not match the environment concerns of the staff, but it’s just as important. Changes to reduce interruptions, lower noise levels, or provide standing desks and/or better chairs can make a serious difference in work quality and health.
Healthier people do better work because their health issues aren’t a distraction. This doesn’t mean getting rid of folks with health issues, it means helping them deal with them where possible – and it isn’t always about physical health.
For example, when someone whose work is repeatedly interrupted suddenly has that situation improved, the change is more than about productivity.
Finally, do managers have their own roadblocks? Absolutely.
What improvements can you make to help everyone work better?
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Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a strategic, operations or marketing problem? See Mark’s site, contact him on Twitter, or email him atmriffey@flatheadbeacon.com. Check out the Flathead Beacon archive of all of Mark’s blogs.