As a business owner or upper manager, when was the last time worked a job that one of your employees routinely performs? If the answer is over a year ago, you may want to consider getting back in the trenches and truly learning the jobs that you’ve tasked your employees to do.
If you’ve ever seen the show Undercover Boss, then you know the importance of seeing exactly what your employees do. No, not so you can give them fabulous prizes at the end, but so that you know exactly how realistic tasks and time management schedules are, and to help you better understand exactly what you’re asking of them as employees.
However, taking the time to walk a day (or more) in your employee’s shoes also has some big benefits for your business:
Stay In Touch With Your Business
Depending on how long you’ve been in business, it’s probably been a while since you’ve performed some of the more mundane tasks. Taking the time to work these types of tasks and positions can help you understand how procedures affect employee productivity, client interaction, and more.
Understand Exactly What a Job Entails
It’s easy to create policy and procedure on what you think the job should be, but how close do these procedures line up to reality? By performing various positions throughout
the company, you can gain insight on what is, and isn’t, working, and how to fix it.
Help Analyze Employee Productivity
When an employee comes to you and says that they are overloaded with work and need help, how do you know if what they’re saying is true, or if they are just working inefficiently? Without working the position directly, it’s difficult to truly analyze workload and productivity.
To Do the Job When No One Else Can
Perhaps the most important reason to re-learn various positions throughout the company is that when the world explodes, you know you can jump in and do the job if you have to, without floundering or looking like it’s your first day.
As a business owner or manager, do you take the time to sit with your employees and learn their jobs? Why or why not?
It seems like the larger a company gets, the further removed from individual jobs the leadership becomes. This is a good refresher.
I know it can be hard and difficult being and employee but you just have to push through till the end.
I know it can be hard and difficult being and employee but you just have to push through till the end.