Crosswords 19 - EMPLOYEE RELATION

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Focusing on employee relations in the recession is a cheap means to boosting profitability.

During tough economic times, it’s usually the most abstract aspects of a business that get trimmed to save money and streamline business. Such can be the case with employee relations, an element of business that often is taken for granted.

But experts and analysts warn that owners and operators should not only be sparing their employee-relations programs during this recession, they should be strengthening them. Solid, consistent employee relations are fundamental to a restaurant’s success, and during these fiscally dour times, these programs may make all the difference.

Jackie Wells Smith is the publisher of Your Employee Handbook and a former human resources executive and consultant of 25 years. She says fostering positive employee relations is the single most important area owners and operators should focus on, especially in the small-business sector. Not only does it improve productivity, but it may also address larger problems occurring at a restaurant.

“In my experience, lack of attention to employee relations is usually the source of whatever problems [an owner or operator] is having,” Smith says. “If they have retention problems, turnover problems, problems with frequent accidents, I generally find that the source of it was always the same place: Employees were unhappy with their jobs.”

Restaurant consultant David Scott Peters, founder of Smile Button Enterprises, says that most quick-service managers have an overly simplistic understanding of why employees are discontented with their jobs, which breeds an even more simplistic understanding of what their happiness looks like.

Even more important than fostering positive morale, Peters says managers need to give employees a sense of how their performance will be measured. The absence of that understanding breeds displeasure, and that, in turn, leads to poor performance.

“I believe there are five major reasons why your employees leave you, and the first three are critical,” Peters says. “They don’t know what they’re supposed to do, they don’t know how to do what they’re supposed to do, and they don’t know how well it’s supposed to be done.”

This, Peters says, is yet another example of underestimating the importance of employee relations. It all begins with management clearly communicating to the employee what his or her goals are, and what will be the measurements of their success. If each staff member knows the “what, how, and how well” of his position, he will be more self-motivated on the job.

“The games, the manager bonuses, the prize incentives, they’re all great. And they may create a new behavior for the time being,” Peters says. “But they don’t change and motivate everyone. The key is creating an atmosphere that motivates. If you don’t have the fundamentals down, none of that warm and fuzzy, one-minute-manager stuff will work.”

Dan Simons is co-founder of Vucurevich|Simons Advisory Group, a hospitality and restaurant consulting firm that works with chains like Fuddruckers and Terra Burger. He, too, believes employee relations is the area to which owners and operators should first look if they are needing to boost profitability.

“Human performance is directly related to human emotion,” Simons says. “You simply cannot separate your restaurant’s culture from your profitability. If I have a client with a food cost problem, I start with their employee relations. How do they feel? How do they look? Do they have pride in their appearance? The self esteem and the pride of the employees translate in measurable ways.”

But fostering that culture of profitability has less to do with nurturing the egos and emotions of one’s employees and more to do with creating an atmosphere where high performance and efficiency are expected and rewarded. Simons says that too often, owners and operators talk about the workplace culture in terms of being soft and caring and possessing good listening skills. But that’s just the surface.

“I’m talking about a high-performance environment that inspires people and holds people accountable to give their best,” Simons says. “Humans play to the level of the competition, and the boss has to set the bar high.”

In addition to setting clear employee expectations, owners and operators can also encourage a culture of high performance by making sure each staff member feels important to the overall operation. This is something that restaurant consultant Ron Wilkinson says is often overlooked in the realm of employee relations.

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The Need For Employer– Employee Relationship

Employee relations or industrial relations as it is commonly referred to as is a discipline that covers the relationship of employees with the organisation and with each other. Industrial relations is concerned with anticipating, addressing and diffusing workplace issues that may interfere with an organisation’s business objectives, as also with resolving disputes between  an among management and employees. It includes the processes of analysing the employer –employee relationship; ensuring that relations with employees comply with applicable central and local laws and regulations; and resolving workplace disputes. Industrial relations touch all aspects of labour such as union policies, personnel policies and practices including wages, welfare, social security, service conditions, supervision and communications, collective bargaining; attitude of management, trade unions and Government action on labor matters. The practice of counselling, disciplining and terminating employees falls within the domain of this discipline. India is being rapidly transformed from a state-driven economy into a market-driven economy committed to privatization, liberalization, and globalization. At the regional level, the states are forced to enter the rat race of liberalization among them to attract funds for investment and development. Owing to this fact India has seen a rise in misunderstandings and conflict of interest, particularly between the employer and the employee over industrial issues which can’t be easily resolved. It is of vital concern to all in the society, viz., management, workers, shareholders, Government, creditors, consumers, suppliers and the general public as well. With the rise of trade unions as powerful organizations, the conflict between labour and management often gets intensified, and this results in strikes, lockouts and other industrial disturbances.

                                                                                         by Sarthak Daing

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Walmart’s Latest Employee-Relations Debacle

A Kemptville, Ontario, Walmart employee was fired  this week after urging a customer to not leave his dog in his car while he shopped. The story quickly grew legs and amounts to yet another PR black eye for the company. 

Walmart had enjoyed a wave of decent PR for a while, but now it finds itself back in a defensive posture–both because of this incident and also for other employee-relations horror stories that play to a now-familiar narrative.  In fact, it’s hard to stay on top of all the negative stories about the big-box retailer. However, this particular story might have been avoided had the company weighed its options more carefully and recognized the value of quality employee-relations.

The lesson for PR pros is to think ahead. That may seem to be a simple notion, but when you dive into Walmart’s handling of the situation, it seems clear that management responded in a knee-jerk fashion.

The employee admits that she directly addressed the customer who allegedly left his dog in the car. She also indicates that the customer responded with anger and claimed that he would not shop at the store again. Later that day the she was called into her manager’s office and told that such issues should be taken up with him directly. Unsatisfied with this solution, she instead declared that the next time she would contact the police. Following that statement, she alleges, she was terminated.

The manager was correct to ask his employee to openly communicate troublesome situations with management, and to avoid confronting the company’s stakeholders directly. Where he arguably went wrong was in terminating an employee who was acting on a humane impulse—rather than exploring alternative solutions or council from human resources. Not only that, but the manager’s decision to let his employee go helps reaffirm a popular narrative that Walmart cares considerably more about its bottom line than its employees.

Walmart (and others) should consider ahead of time how actions can impact reputation. And that goes for a company's entire personnel—from a store greeter all the way up to the CEO.

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9 tips how to Develop an Employee Engagement Programs

together some helpful tips Human Resources professionals should keep in mind when it comes to engagement programs:

1) There is no magic formula. Enough said here.

2) Each employer's idea of engagement and how to bring it about is different. Respect that what may work at another company, may not be the right fit for yours. Understand, and be true to your culture.

3) Determine what are the key drivers of engagement at your organization. Whether through employee opinion surveys or walking the halls, determine what drives employee engagement at your company. Is it work/life balance, compensation, career paths and personal growth? Having this information will help guide your efforts and focus.

4) Alignment. Make sure your programs, the messages, and actions are aligned with the business strategy.

5) Measure, measure, measure. Have the data ready to show how the programs are working (or not). Make sure it answers some of the following questions:
a. How are the initiatives making a difference? 
b. Has turnover been reduced? By how much?
c. Has your engagement scores improved? By how much?
d. Has your time-to-fill been reduced due to increased applicants?
e. How do these statistics impact the bottom line?

6) Be Flexible, be adaptable. Understand that sometimes the one constant is change. What may be the strategy today can change in an instant tomorrow with new leadership, as a result of economic changes, competition and the like.

7) Communicate. Do not make the assumption that the whole organization knows what you are working on when it comes to engagement programs. Communicate constantly, hold small information sessions or Town Halls to introduce new programs.

8) Don't lose momentum. Once you start the engagement initiatives keep them going. Build upon the buzz and the energy. Also once rolled out, revisit your programs periodically to keep them fresh and updated.

9) Get Buy In! I cannot stress this enough. The issue of buy in came up time and again over the course of the conference and programs that have succeeded were those that had buy in from the senior most executives and business unit heads before embarking on these initiatives.

Every company is on a quest to attract, retain, and motivate a high performing team. How we each achieve this may take different paths respecting what makes each of our companies unique. But just remember that no matter where in the world you may be, or in what industry, you are not alone in your quest to build engagement.

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