Masonry Magazine December 1993 Page. 27
QUALITY TEAM BUILDING
One of the biggest changes you'll have to make to gain the benefits of quality is recognizing the importance of involving your employees in the success of your company.
HOW CAN WE GET THE RESULTS WE WANT WITH THE RESOURCES WE HAVE?
And how can we motivate our major resources our employees to make our company more profitable? We spend big money on salaries, but very little on helping our employees maximize their potential and our profits. We're wasting time, losing money and frustrating people. How can we change this?
One answer, and we think the best, is to use the principles of the Quality Process to implement Quality Team Building at your company.
Traditionally, owners and managers have held their businesses close to their chests. They know how to run their businesses their way-they've done it that way every since they've been in business-and it's hard for them to let go. How many of us use the "My way or the highway" philosophy of management? And then we wonder why our employees aren't motivated. We practice mushroom management-we keep our employees in the dark and occasionally feed them garbage. This doesn't sound like it should work and it doesn't.
For those of you who have attended one of MCAA's Quality Institutes (and there are about three-hundred or so of you) you know that the Quality Process provides you with an excellent opportunity to:
Increase customer satisfaction and loyalty:
Improve the operating efficiency of your company:
Increase your profitability; and
Make your business life more enjoyable.
But you can't get these benefits without a price. And the price you pay is change. In order to have the Quality Process work for you, you must change.
One of the biggest changes you will have to make to gain the benefits of quality is recognizing the importance of involving your employees in the success of your company. This will not be easy-but the rewards are worth the effort.
BY ALFRED R. ROACH, JR
Callahan/Roach and Associates
If you do decide to implement the Quality Process and adopt a Quality Team Building approach to managing your business, you will be asked to look at your employees in an entirely new light:
First, you must see your employees as your internal customers. Your internal customers provide you with your connection to your external customers.
Next, you must see your employees as a source of increased profitability. Your employees represent one of your biggest costs and can substantially affect your profitability. Your external customers are responsible for your gross revenue-but your internal customers are responsible for profit.
You must see your employees as a tremendous resource of information. They are the ones who are in the field and in the office doing the work of the company. They know how to improve your operations. But you never ask them. And they won't offer the information because they don't think you want to know.
You must see your employees as the way to get and keep customers. They are the ones who work with your external customers. If your employees are excited and motivated, they will keep your customers more than satisfied. Our contracting company in Atlanta has a listing (not a display ad) in the yellow pages, and that's the extent of our advertising. Our new customers come from referrals. Our employees keep our existing customers so happy that they just love telling other customers about us. Our employees are our advertising.
You must see your employees as valuable assets of your company. And, like any other asset, this asset must be cared for and nurtured. The Quality Process calls for you to substantially increase your commitment to employee training. When we explain this to contractors we are always asked the question "But what if I spend all this time and money training an employee and he leaves." That's not the question the question is "What if you don't train that employee and he stays." An untrained employee will cause you to lose far more money than the money you will spend on training.
Finally, the biggest challenge you will have in the Quality Team-Building process is to see your employees as your team to see your employees as a group of people who MASONRY-NOVEMBER/DECEMBER, 1993 27