Why You Should Put Employees First, Customers Second In Your Cleaning Business

The purpose of any business is to maximize profits and to create value for its customers. Profits are the lifeblood of any company and putting customers first is priority number one. Any successful business puts the customer first, ahead of all other things, including employees. In a profit centered business, customer satisfaction is the goal and all company resources will be poured into achieving this goal. However, this philosophy is changing.

Two professors from Manchester (UK) Business School; Gary Davies and Rosa Chun, conducted field interviews with 4,700 customers and employees of 63 businesses. They learned that service companies were more likely to be growing if their employee satisfaction exceeded their customer satisfaction. Their research showed two things; employee and customers views strongly correlate and employee views tend to transfer to customers. The more the employees view outshined the customers', the greater the sales growth. "What separates you from your competitors are the knowledge, skills, abilities and commitment of the people who work for you,” said Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.

So how does a business owner make the change from customer first to employee first? Let's begin by first analyzing what could happen to a company if it allows stress and negativity to infiltrate the company and what may cause an employee to harbor negative feelings.

• Low morale
• Poor communication
• Conflicts between employees and managemen
•  Lower productivity
• Quality control problems
• Resistance to change
• Missed opportunities
• Negative, stressful work atmosphere
• Higher employee turnover
• Poor customer service
• Higher customer turnover

It's important to realize that negativity is a learned behavior. The work environment contributes to the employee's outlook – positive or negative. Once the environment has been polluted with negativity, it's difficult to fix. Most negative people don't see themselves as negative – they believe they are “realistic.” You can't change someone else's attitude; they must be given motivation to change themselves.

How does the negativity get started in the workplace? Following are some of the reasons people burn out and become stressed or angry:

• Excessively high workloads
  - This is common when an employee does exceptional work – we pile on additional work to pick up the slack of the under-performers.
• Unrealistic deadlines
• Conflicts between employees and/or management
• Lack of respect
  - Let your employees know how important their job is. Even if the clients don't respect what they do, employers need to show respect for what their employees do.
• Lack of recognition and reward
  - Employees want to be recognized and rewarded for exceptional work
• Lack of feedback on their performance o Good or bad, people need feedback
• Lack of team spirit
• Boring, repetitious work
  - Additional training can keep work interesting.
  - Performance incentives can motivate people to out-perform co-workers.
  - Additional coaching for supervisory positions can keep employees motivated to stay with the company and elevate their position.
• Poor performance by supervisors and coworkers
  - If employees regularly see co-workers and supervisors getting away with sub-standard work, they have no motivation to continue doing exceptional work.

As an employer, it's important to keep a pulse on the attitude of your work force. Here are some tips for recognizing burnout and stress:

• Irritability
• Depression
• Anxiety
• High performer's work is no longer up to standard
• Makes poor decisions
• Has a no-care attitude
• Lost sense of humor
• Complains of more physical ailments and lack of sleep
• Increased absenteeism or sick leave

How can you motivate employees to be happy, productive, and reduce the amount of stress in the workplace? It begins with you! You are the boss and your employees will be looking to you for leadership and guidance. You need to create an environment where all the “team players” are working towards the same company goal and moving forward in the same direction. You and your management team should consistently address employees on the vision of the company.

To effectively create a great team around you, employees will need to feel as though they are part of the big picture and that their contributions to the company are essential in achieving this vision and will make a difference. Being a visible leader and keeping your employees informed while providing ongoing company updates will help reduce employee uncertainty and stress, especially during the downtimes. Creating excitement about the company will in turn create employees excited about their future and excitement about their work.

Boosting employee happiness doesn't need to cost a lot or be time consuming. With just a little resourcefulness and some forward planning, companies can have happier motivated employees if they really want to. Here are a few ways to get started.

• Keep workloads fair among all employees
• Just because someone is an exceptional performer, doesn't mean you should pile extra work on them
• Provide competitive compensation
• Recognize the importance of work-life balance
• Provide a clear career path
• Have employees participate in decisions that affect their jobs
• Improve communication between management and employees
• Develop and implement team building activities
• Teach them new skills
• Provide opportunities for more social engagement between employees -- providing snacks or lunch, volunteer activities you can all do together, etc.
• Provide ongoing training, short training sessions
• Do not play favorites - treat everyone with dignity and respect
• Encourage and empower employees to solve their own problems
• Criticize or coach in private
• Compliment and praise in public (or privately)
• Listen to your employees' ideas, concerns and suggestions and don't shut them down because "we tried that and it didn't work". That kind of remark de-motivates them and they'll stop communicating with you.

Happy employees are motivated and inspired to work at their potential. Even your best performers will leave when they are unhappy. Happy means productive and here is what your company can expect from happy employees.

Happy employees:

• Use fewer sick days
• Are late to work less frequently
• Are more productive
• Look for ways to contribute to the organization beyond their job descriptions
• Give their best and do it with a positive attitude

Put your employees first, and profits will follow. Happy and content employees make for a productive and effective company. Listening and understanding your employee's wants and needs, providing the right motivation and sincerity can do wonders for an employee's morale, which in turn will do wonders for your company and its success.