If you owned your own business

[April]

what "rules" etc would you have for your employees? What would you expect out of them?

This is something that my husband and I talk about often, because of the way his job treats him. I always say that once an employee was hired, I would tell them EXACTLY what I expected from them, and tell them, in return what they would get from me. For example

You no call no show ONCE and you are fired, unless you are deathly ill, broken, in a hospital or someone you love is.

You show up on time/call if you are going to be late. If you are late repeatedly, you will be let go.

DO your job. As best as you can. Don't half ass it

Take responsiblity for your mistakes. Fess up if you make one.

Have a suggestion? Speak up

If Call off's are a regular thing, without doctors notes, and call offs continually seem to happen on busy nights or weekends, bye bye

In return, you get:

Benefits

Treated with respect

you don't have to take anything from rude customers. You have the authority to deny service

My back up, and any managers back up. what you say (within reason, goes)

Promotion from within

Livable wages

The ability to be heard/have a say

Obviously there are more, but it would be relativly simple. Show up to work, do a good job and I would try to make working as pleasant as possible.

What would you expect/give your employees?

[digilight]

A few things I learned from my former boss (the guy I bought the shop from).

1. Never ask an employee to do something that you yourself either cannot or will not do. I would always make sure that employee's would see me doing all the different jobs in the shop (when I was manager and actually had employee's).

2. Expect employee's to work hard, but not expect unrealistic output or quotas. For example we used to have a job where a portion of it was data entry. I required everyone to be able to enter a minimum of 100 lines per hour on average. This wasn't hard, myself I could do around 250-300 lines per hour.

3. Its actually very cheap to keep good employee's happy. My boss always provided free soda's, coffee, and drinking water to the staff. The only kicker is that one of us would have to pickup the soda's and keep the fridge filled, but for around 10 bucks a week it sure helped moral. He would also from time to time stop by Starbucks or Coffee Bean and Tea Leave and pick up Iced Blendeds for the whole staff. The occasional pizza, staff lunch at xmas, etc.

4. Music, I've kept one of my personal stereo's in the back office (the production area) for the last 7 years and whoever was working back there could listen to whatever they wanted with one rule, no naughty lyrics (we used to be in a office building and always kept our door open so our music would sometimes travel into the hallway, had to be polite at least).

5. Good beni's are a must, medical, dental, vision, 401K etc.

6. He was a financial wizard and had no problem having a employee sit down with him and ask him questions and get advice, him and I over the years helped one employee with legal problems, divorce issues, if any of us had car problems we knew that him, I, or another employee would give us a ride no problem.

7. And finally, you've gotta stand up for your staff when they are in the right, and stand up to them when they are in the wrong. You have to be willing to give respect as well as expect to have to earn it as well.

[erik316wttn]

what "rules" etc would you have for your employees? What would you expect out of them?

This is something that my husband and I talk about often, because of the way his job treats him. I always say that once an employee was hired, I would tell them EXACTLY what I expected from them, and tell them, in return what they would get from me. For example

You no call no show ONCE and you are fired, unless you are deathly ill, broken, in a hospital or someone you love is.

You show up on time/call if you are going to be late. If you are late repeatedly, you will be let go.

DO your job. As best as you can. Don't half ass it

Take responsiblity for your mistakes. Fess up if you make one.

Have a suggestion? Speak up

If Call off's are a regular thing, without doctors notes, and call offs continually seem to happen on busy nights or weekends, bye bye

In return, you get:

Benefits

Treated with respect

you don't have to take anything from rude customers. You have the authority to deny service

My back up, and any managers back up. what you say (within reason, goes)

Promotion from within

Livable wages

The ability to be heard/have a say

Obviously there are more, but it would be relativly simple. Show up to work, do a good job and I would try to make working as pleasant as possible.

What would you expect/give your employees?

Can I come work for you?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

You no call no show ONCE and you are fired, unless you are deathly ill, broken, in a hospital or someone you love is.

I wouldn't go there.

There have been one or two occasions in my 8 years of working for my current company where I didn't come in to work just because I forgot I was working that day, or I wrote down the wrong day. I guess under your rules that would mean I'm out on my ass.

My company has a policy stating that if you NCNS three times in a row, it is assumed you have decided to quit. However, that lead to situations where a person would NCNS two shifts in a row and then show up for the third, then NCNS two more shifts. I would have the policy be that you are fired if you NCNS three shifts in a row OR you NCNS five shifts in a month.

[PuckishOne]

Puck's Golden Rule

And I would put this on a plaque, prominently displayed at my (hypothetical) place of business...

Lead by example.

The thing that never fails to chafe my turkey is a boss who holds firm to the "do as I say, not as I do" credo, and no way in Helena, Montana would I ever do that to staff.

[Knightmare]

In return, you get:

Benefits

Treated with respect

you don't have to take anything from rude customers. You have the authority to deny service

My back up, and any managers back up. what you say (within reason, goes)

Promotion from within

Livable wages

The ability to be heard/have a say

Obviously there are more, but it would be relativly simple. Show up to work, do a good job and I would try to make working as pleasant as possible.

I DREAM of finding a job like this. Not some giant corporation where money is the number 1 concern, but where the employees are #1.

[ladodger34]

.What would you expect/give your employees?

At my former job, one of the things that would chap my hide was all the "hand holding" we had to do with some of the kids. We had a staff meeting every Friday. At the staff meeting, we handed out new schedules and the staff filled out their time sheets. If they missed the meeting, it was not a huge deal (though we did go over other important information) as long as they called and came in to pick up their schedule and time sheet. Most of the time, we had to track the kids down to get them their schedules and time sheets. It was our butts if they didn't, so of course they took advantage.

[Jack T. Chance]

IF I ever own my own business, I'm going to make absolutely SURE that it is a business that can be run solely as a one-man operation. I want NO employees except for the only 3 that I can actually rely upon: Me, Myself, and I!

'Nuff said.

[powerboy]

If I owned my own business

I would

1. Give everyone respect
2. Give great wages
3. Let them Talk back to the customer, if they are rude
4. have there back, no matter what
5. Give great benefits
6. Expect everyone to work there hardest.
7. be there for them.

[HYHYBT]

1. Never ask an employee to do something that you yourself either cannot or will not do. I would always make sure that employee's would see me doing all the different jobs in the shop (when I was manager and actually had employee's).

I reluctantly have to disagree, only with the words "or cannot." I cannot fit through the tunnels in the playground. I'm too large and don't bend the right way. When a child makes any kind of mess in there (usually vomit or pee, once we were fortunate enough that it was only a spilled sundae), I have to find someone short and skinny, or leave it which really isn't an option.

Similar messes in other places I tend to clean myself because I hate asking other people to do *that*.

[digilight]

Yeah, I guess I should have said within reason. There will always be some types of exceptions to the rule. Good point.

[AforElephant]

I believe in being flexible - up to a point.

Leading by example, as someone already pointed out, is the best thing.