19 View the business every day as if you were an employee
Think about working in your business from your employees’
perspective. Just because you may not actually be working there
doesn’t mean that the standards need to slip in terms of facilities.
In the same way that you have to force yourself to see the café as a
customer, force yourself to see it as a front line employee. If you
create a decent environment for your staff you’ll hold onto them
much, much longer. Simple as that. And if you hold onto the good
ones longer, you’ll make more money. The costs of employing new
staff are high. New employees need training and will make more
mistakes with the customers which will cost you sales or may even
result in the loss of a good customer that you’ve worked so hard to
get.
So keep ‘em happy. It makes sense – and money. But only to a
point. Make it crystal clear at interview, induction and ongoing
training that this it is a working environment. That you expect work
from them. That if they work for you they have made a
commitment to work– not a commitment to having fun in a
holiday camp.
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