5 ways to improve workplace habits

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I recently attended a conference in Boston, Mass., where I took some clients out for drinks and dinner at an Irish pub near our hotel. The next morning, I realized I had left my credit card at the bar.

I verified there was no activity on my credit card, so I headed to the bar at 11:30 a.m., when it opened. I was greeted at the door, and I told the employee, Mara, that I had likely left my credit card there the previous evening. Mara asked me the color of my credit card and we walked over to the cash register. She proceeded to pull out a stack of credit cards left there from the previous night, sorted by color. She checked my ID and gave mine back.
Mara said about 25 credit cards are left at the bar each night. The staff shreds them after holding them for 72 hours.

On my walk back to the hotel, I reflected that wow, I’m certainly not the only person who made this mistake and I’m glad the bar has a good process in place. In that vein, what processes does my business develop for similar customer events? Let’s consider where this applies to your pest control business.
After interviewing several customers, here is a list of what I think are the Top 5 “human behavior tendencies,” or HBTs, as they relate to running a service business.

1. Employee reviews lag behind schedule, if they are conducted at all. Most company managers I talk with fail to execute performance reviews on a timely basis. The best way to fix this is to simplify the process: Schedule reviews three months ahead of time for all parties involved. Conduct them first thing in the workday, before schedules get disrupted. Limit the time to one hour and meet again to cover anything that requires more time.
2. Standard operating procedures (SOPs) are published, then forgotten about on a shelf. Ideally, SOPs should be reviewed and updated with each service offering. That may sound insurmountable, but really, ticking a checkbox for many of the routine items makes filling out and processing easier. Not only should SOPs be regularly updated, but the latest version should be prominently hanging on an office wall — or available on your company intranet, if you have one. Being able to give new technicians the latest SOPs without worrying about any outdated information makes training much easier.
3. There are many reactive and zero proactive staff meetings. The best approach is similar to employee reviews: Put routine, short (30-minute) meetings on the schedule and consider allowing virtual attendance where appropriate. Make sure to include some good news and fun stuff for staff. Issues still should be dealt with as soon as they occur, of course, but a proactive approach should reduce the frequency of problems.
4. There’s no knowledge of new hires until they show up. You need to consider a new hire as the most important person on your staff. Everyone should know their name when they walk in the door. Their first day is stressful and should be choreographed like a Hollywood movie. As a service manager, I started staff on Thursdays to better allow us to prepare and make their first week quick and easy.
5. There’s no benchmarking in place for staff. Again, this needs to be simple. It should be a one-page scorecard that includes attendance, vehicle accidents, stops completed and stops not completed. I like to compare it to a baseball card without the stale gum included.

Recognizing and addressing HBTs is a great opportunity to master the obvious without blame or complaint, and with far less frustration.

<p>The post 5 ways to improve workplace habits first appeared on Pest Management Professional.</p>

from Pest Management Professional https://www.mypmp.net/2024/10/24/5-ways-to-improve-workplace-habits/
Sacramento CA