Recently two popular CEOs resigned from their companies. Girl Boss CEO, Sophia Amoruso, and Uber CEO, Travis Kalanick. Both CEOs admitted on many accounts that they experienced difficulty managing a team, just did not like to manage a team, or their teams’ behavior caused them to be the talk of the media. Building a team for your business is something that is inevitable unless you plan on being a solopreneur forever. Therefore, it is safe to say that having leadership skills and the ability to manage your team will be mandatory if you wish to grow your business past being a solopreneur. So today, we wanted to break down 5 ways (of the many) to create process and systems for your team that can make your life as a leader a bit more easier.
Building a team for your business is something that is inevitable unless you plan on being a solopreneur forever.
- Probation Period
When choosing to hire a team member, know that it is okay to place them on a probationary period to see how they perform. This probationary period will allow you to evaluate the employee’s performance, their mannerism in the workplace, how they handle workplace conflicts and just how well they get along with other employees. Probationary periods are common in most corporate jobs and they have worked for many years by successful leaders. Therefore modern small business can use these very same techniques, to basically test an employee out before welcoming them full circle into the company.
- Mandatory Training
When a new team member is hired for your company training should be mandatory and should never be optional. It is not okay to assume because someone knows the job, they will act accordingly. Therefore new team members should be trained on the workplace culture, consumer management, customer service and any other standard ground of operations that the business should let an employee be aware of. Have your new team members go through mandatory training is a preventive measure for workplace conflict, which unfortunately is unavoidable. It also eliminates the possibility of a team member ruining the reputation of your business or saying “I didn’t know”. Mandatory training is the perfect chance for you to lay out all of your company’s ground rules and really train your team member on what you need and expect from them.
Mandatory training is a preventive measure of workplace conflict… that eliminates the possibility of a saying “I didn’t know.”
- Evaluation
Evaluations of your employees should be done every 3 months or quarter that your team member continues to work for you. After the first year, your team member can start getting evaluations done on an annual basis. Evaluations serve the purpose of making sure that the employee is still suitable for the company. This also helps to prevent the likelihood of an employee slacking off as they get more comfortable in the job role. During the evaluation of your team member, you should check for factors such as performance level, professionalism and customer service skills.
- Reports
Being that most businesses are now switching from brick and mortar to online based business, weekly or bi-weekly reports for team members have become more needed. Reports for your team members will help you to know for what it is that the team member has worked on and produced for the company. This is extremely important to establish a trust-based relationship between the team member and the leader of the company. In this simple self-made system (refer back to the previous blog for more info on a self-made system) all that is happening is the team member is completing a form with the work they have done and submitting it to you ( the leader) on a specific basis. This also eliminates micro-managing, in which most millennial employees truly despise and can also enable workplace conflict.
- Keep it Professional
Professionalism is not something that many thinks should have to be taught, and it is something that many should just know. However, it is not quite that simple. Remember as the leader of the team you are responsible for keeping it professional and also making sure that your team members remain professional at all times. This means to apply the same rules for all team members across the board, be fair when resolving workplace conflict. This also means to ensure that there is no racism, sexual violations amongst team members and of course keeping a zero tolerance for disrespect.
Processes and systems for your team are what will help to keep your team to keep in order. They will help to shape a culture for your company that cannot be replaced or duplicated. Most importantly when done correctly they will help you to create a team of highly committed individuals that are focused on seeing the success of the business. In turn, you will be sure to build team members who are totally committed to making sure you succeed.
