A lot of managers are frustrated that their teams and their employees aren’t performing to the level that they expect. We’ve all been there, we ask our teams to do stuff, we train them on how to do it, we explain the why behind it, we even give them a due date. Then it doesn’t get done.
You are sitting there as the manager asking yourself, “what did I miss?” You are going through every book and article and podcast you ever listened to, running down a mental checklist of your communication to your team, etc..
This happens all of the time, I can’t even fathom the percentage of times that I have asked people to do stuff or created a system for them to follow and it just doesn’t happen. Whether it’s a one-to-one ask or its a system that corporate develops and trains the entire organization on and expects them to start following.
Why aren’t people doing what we ask them to do and following the systems that we create for them?
It’s Accountability!!!
Without holding people accountable to doing what you ask and expect them to do. You aren’t creating a system or a task for them; you are giving them a suggestion.
Without an accountability mechanism you are creating suggestions not systems.
So when you don’t incorporate accountability into your daily operation, you are letting your hourly employees determine what should be done and what shouldn’t be done on any given shift. Does that feel good?
Let me say it again, you need to hold people accountable to doing what you need them to do. Most organizations that are struggling with operations it isn’t because they aren’t communicating well, or their systems don’t work, it is that their employees simply aren’t following them.
Most of our clients who switch to OpsAnalitica have about a 20% compliance rate on paper based systems. That means that 80% of their locations are not using the systems created for them at all and the company operations and customer satisfaction are suffering.
Accountability is the hardest part of managing any person or system, because it requires the already very busy manager and already very busy team member follow-up, which is extra work, when they already feel overworked.
Think about your kids, how many times do they just wait you out. Hey, go clean your room. Hey, go clean your room. All of a sudden you are running out the door or it’s late and they need to go to bed. Room cleaning doesn’t get done. That happens all the time in multi-location operations as well with adult managers who know, just like your kids, that you are too busy to hold them accountable to doing what you asked, they just wait you out.
The solution to all of this is recognizing the simple truth of our situation. We need to hold our teams accountable to doing what we asked them to do every time.
It is unrealistic to think that we can continue to do what we have always done, very ineffectively, by using email, text, and phone call follow-ups. It’s too much and it is too inefficient.
What we need is a system that has an accountability mechanism built into it, that has automated alerts and notifications built into it. That collects accurate data that can be used for coaching. We need an Operations Management Platform, like OpsAnalitica, that will help you manage holding your teams accountable and make it easier for management to see what is actually happening at the store level.
OpsAnalitica’s accountability engine and data collection allows managers to see what is happening in real-time, to see what is getting done and not getting done daily, to get notified when things aren’t happening so they can follow-up proactively and in a timely manner. Timeliness in follow-up is always important.
Top performing organizations that use OpsAnalitica regularly increased their checklist and task compliance from 20% complete to over 80% complete by just putting them in our system and holding their teams accountable to doing them. Why? Because we take the guesswork out of what is happening. We get systems and tasks out of the black hole that they live in today and we put them on your phone and in your inbox where you can manage them effectively.
Seeing is believing in this stuff, I invite you to schedule a quick demo so you can see how your company could start holding your teams more accountable to following your systems and doing what you ask them to do. Please click here to schedule a demo today.