Take Care of Your People. Take Care of Your People. Take Care of Your People

Take Care of Your People. Take Care of Your People. Take Care of Your People

The title of this article was the advice my Dad gave to me when I asked him what should I do as a leader just before I became an officer in the US Navy. Take care of your people. (he repeated it three times)

People really value little things that you can do for them, but often their bosses or leaders don’t understand what is important to them. I once was in charge of a huge warehouse complex in San Diego for a one-month assignment. It was January, which is the worst weather month in San Diego. None of the ware­houses were air-conditioned or heated. The temperature would fall to the low forties or upper thirties in the morning, and many of the forklift drivers were not used to this type of chilly weather.

I managed to obtain some surplus sweaters for all of the forklift drivers to wear. We set them up in one area of the warehouse so that they could be used by employees when they were cold.

I didn’t realize how appreciative the employees were of this gesture until three years later, when I returned in the same month for a similar project. I was told to report early to the conference room in the warehouse. Much to my shock, every warehouse employee was in the warehouse was wearing one of the sweaters, and they all greeted me with a standing ovation and a cake.  I didn’t want to let them down, so that year I secured wool watch caps for them.

 

I later wrote a book Broken Windows Management (available on Amazon). The whole one message or premise of the book was this: Prevention of disorder and actually fixing things that employees say are wrong; goes a very long way in establishing trust and credibility with management (also leader). If what they request is reasonable, give it to them.  Management and leaders must be vigilant and constantly try to control disorder and fix the things and issues that employees’ value.  These actions reduce employee fear of management and actually help gain trust. Trust is enhanced by quickly fixing things that employees want fixed. Unfortunately, many organizations have not figured out this simple axiom yet. Many companies, because their employees do not trust them, will never get enough credibility to execute broken windows management actions.

 

Take care of your people.

 

Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ