Day#9 Engaging & Retaining Employees who are Committed to Quality Work
Quality standards are established at the Top and the commitment to quality standards must be required for everyone - NO EXCEPTIONS. The question you need to answer, "Are these standards being equally followed by everyone within the organization?".
If employees are subjected to inconsistencies of quality within their work environments, every level of service could be negatively affected.
Here is an example of how inconsistencies of quality standards could impact a company:
Company A recently updated their production software system. Although every employee was required to complete 30 hours of training, those in Sales and Customer Service attended half of the training sessions. Once the updated software was fully implemented, employees in the production and accounting departments began noticing an increase of errors; which required additional time and energy to correct. It didn't take long to determine the errors were originating in the Sales and Customer Service Departments. Animosity began to build when management did not address the errors and did not implement consequences to those who continuously made the errors. As the toxic culture began to grow, good employees left. This created a costly high employee turnover rate, which negatively impacted Company A's revenue and profits.
The first steps to determine if you have a toxic culture:
1) Review rules and procedures to ensure quality standards are in place.
2) Conduct an honest assessment of your current state. Conduct internal surveys to determine if employees understand, and are adhering to, company defined quality standards.
3) Determine if these are being followed equally by management and employees.
4) Are there consequences in place when quality standards are not met?
When it comes to developing and implementing high quality standards, everyone must commit to the same quality standards. There should be NO EXCEPTIONS; even for those at the top.