The truth is, employees want to do the right thing by their employer. However, obviously being human and all, there will be times when your employees (and you!) will make innocent errors when completing day-to-day tasks.
As long as your employees are accountable to these errors, this won’t always have a negative impact on your trade business’s development.
So, how can errors have a positive impact on your trade business and how on earth does this relate to employee accountability?
Errors, when corrected in a tactful manner by a trade business owner, lead to steep learning curves, and new ways of thinking for employees. These are two outcomes worth encouraging in your trade business.
That said, in order for your employees to achieve growth from their errors you need to be able to pinpoint where the particular mistake was made and by whom. This isn’t always easy to deduce. However, by implementing systems in your trade business, you will be able to more efficiently pinpoint this, leading to employee accountability (and intentionally learning and growth once these errors have been corrected).
We emphasis the importance of systems to our Lifestyle Tradie members. They rave about the benefits systems have had to their business to achieve positive predictable results every time, and although employee accountability is just one of the many benefits, it’s definitely a major one that they love!
With systems you know exactly what steps, to the minute detail, each employee takes to complete certain tasks. Andy always say “the ONLY time something goes wrong in the business is when someone doesn’t follow the systems”. Without systems there is no way to measure if a job is getting done properly.
Holding employees accountable to systems helps shape a mutual understanding between you and them of what their role is. They know what needs to be done, and the exact steps to take to complete tasks correctly. Therefore, employees are able to take ownership of the outcomes that result from the tasks they complete as part of realising this role.
When you have written systems in your trade business (and not just in your head), you train employees using these systems. They are documented for employees to refer to at anytime. This encourages employees to take responsibly for their actions, performance improves and errors are removed. They could never say “Oh, I didn’t do that because I didn’t know…”.
With systems, your expectations of how well tasks need to be completed are clearly communicated and therefore employees are able to evaluate their delivery of certain tasks and improve their performance over and above these systems. This empowers employees to take control of their own learning experiences and growth.
The long and short of it is that errors, when completing tasks in the workplace, are inevitable. But, by implementing systems for employees to follow will keep them accountable, errors will be reduced, any errors that do occur can be quickly resolved and allow for faster employee learning and growth. All of which goes a long way to encouraging your trade business’s development!
What’s next?
- Join our Kick-Ass Tradies Facebook Group, for access to trade business specific conversations, tips and resources, plus a like-minded community of tradies.
- Book a 15-minute Game Plan Call with Andy, owner of Dr. DRiP plumbing and co-founder of Lifestyle Tradie, to clarify your priorities and get clear action steps.
