As the head of a company or organization, it falls on the employer to know how to best put to use the people and tools available in the best way possible. This is true from the first moment of a job interview all the way through the life of your company, until you sell it or pass it on to someone else when you retire. As the boss, your job isn’t telling people what to do—it’s knowing what they should be doing and making sure they know it too.
It’s a sad fact that 35% of Americans would trade a raise for a new boss. If you’ve ever worked for someone else yourself, you know the feeling: it’s incredibly frustrating when you think you know how to handle a situation better than the person who’s in charge of it. Why is this such a common attitude? As a boss, you know that it’s more complicated than it looks from outside. Any company has a lot of moving parts, and it’s up to you to coordinate them so they all move in unison. That might involve slowing down or even getting rid of an individual part here and there—as long as it makes the machine work better, it’s worth it.
But the fact remains that when you’re dealing with so many variables, it’s easy to forget what some of them are for—or simply never learn it in the first place! This is why it’s so important to know exactly what each segment of your company does.
Depending on how large of a business you run, this could be difficult or downright impossible. But it’s never a bad idea to learn more about your employees’ opinions, even (or especially) if you have hundreds of them. And while it may not be possible to sit down with every single person and ask if they feel they’re being properly utilized, we live in an age where communication and data analysis are easier and quicker than ever.
So what are the best ways to make sure your company is running as smoothly as possible? The single best piece of advice is this: listen to people. If you talk to your Head of Human Resources and she tells you productivity is down in Sales, don’t send out an angry email telling them to shape up. Instead, try to find out why productivity is down. Maybe their computers are full of outdated software, or they’re working in incompatible teams. The more you listen, the easier it will be to figure out what’s jamming the gears and the quicker you can fix it.
Don’t be one of the bosses that 35% wants to fire. Be alert, flexible and sensitive to the needs of your employees. They’re people too—and they’re the people that spell the difference between a successful company and a stagnant one. So open your eyes and ears, send out an employee satisfaction survey, and be attentive to their needs. You may be the head of the company, but they’re the hands, feet, heart and lungs. Treat them well.