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Do your employees know if the company is making money or losing money? Even if financial statements may be private for the firm, some indication should be given to employees that the company is either doing well or it is not so they do not worry needlessly about their jobs.
Let employees know the company is either profitable or not. Regardless of the answer, keep your most valuable assets well informed or they will mentally create untrue stories about what is happening. If your firm is making money and you tell them this good news, it will reassure them.
If you are losing money, tell them with a turnaround plan in mind. If the company is not making money, in the same breath let them know there is a plan to change this and it is being worked on right now. If your firm is not making money, tell the employees what the turnaround plan is and how they can directly help.
When you are losing money, employees start to worry. When the company is not profitable, the employees want to know their managers are doing something to change that so everyone’s job is no longer in jeopardy. Convey your turnaround plan and tell your people how they can help. Talk about cost reduction programs, product cost evaluations, new sales and marketing plans, new sales personnel to be hired, new products that will be offered soon and other programs that will streamline costs and boost profit margins.
Your firm makes money when employees do things right. When the company is making money, relate this bottom line improvement to employees’ good work. Talk favorably about the instances when specific people correctly timely report problems regarding quality control. Discuss favorably when shipping people catch shipping errors before the customer discovers them. Talk about the sales personnel who went out and reclaimed a lost customer account lost five years ago. Convey the call to everyone on staff which came from the happy customer who was very satisfied enough and pleased with a product or service recently purchased that they sat down and wrote their experience with your firm.
Keep a good perspective every day for yourself and for your coworkers. All of these positive things that happen every day need to be shared with employees and related directly to the continued financial success of the company. It is easy to report problems but even more important it is vital to show a sense of balance because there are far more happy customers than angry ones. When addressing the employees about problems, remember to remind everyone of the many problems that the company has overcome.
Discussing and analyzing problems helps to solve them. Tell them when everyone discusses problems; the company only gets better through its employees. Remember to try to maintain and demonstrate a balance of the items chosen to be discussed and come across fairly and honestly to those who work hard every day for the good of the company.
