4 ms·

This thread provides me with an opportunity to ask for advice. I am a manager of a family-owned post office. It's a rather intense job, and I ensure that I'm a

This thread provides me with an opportunity to ask for advice. I am a manager of a family-owned post office. It's a rather intense job, and I ensure that I'm aware of the "status" of each of the 6 employees. If they're feeling unwell or worn out, I'll tell them to do the simpler jobs. It's much like a typical retail job with handling of stock and money.. but there's a very important difference: we have strict procedures to follow for mail, money and identity services. I've told the staff that the procedures set out by Australia Post are paramount and that their "habits" when dealing with customers must ensure everything is verified and triple-checked. Unfortunately, some of the staff have developed lazy habits. They easily notice any issues when it's quiet, they're feeling good and performing a typical transaction. However if it's busy, they're distracted or handling an unusual transaction, they are prone to making mistakes. How do I help them develop better habits? If they are willing to change but having trouble, what do I do? If they are unwilling to change, what do I do? I really don't want to micromanage, but they're simply making too many mistakes and we may be liable for them. I've told them at times to go slower yet their comfort with their habits makes them go quickly even if I tell them to take their time and double check. If I make a checklist for them to go through in the longer transactions, they just check every box without truly thinking about it. Any advice would be appreciated.

isolate 11y ago
Penalize them financially for making mistakes or give a bonus for not making mistakes.
- pheroden 11y ago
  This is probably illegal (garnishing for mistakes), so check with you local labour laws before doing this. Though I would recommend against this unless you want employees quitting or stealing from you.
  - isolate 11y ago
    Yeah, it's a good point. Carrots might work better than sticks. You can always fire people for incompetence though.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - kbenson 11y ago
    Even if you just bonus and don't penalize, if you do it often and regular, it becomes an expectred portion of compensation, and the lack of the bonus becomes the penalty. It does require skipping or reducing the next round of raises in lieu of the bonus structure though, unless you are fine with just paying out more money to employees to reduce problems (which for some people and/or some situations is fine).
- gluggymug 11y ago
  That's bad advice. Just going to cause resentment IMO. The concept of double checking your own work doesn't really fly in engineering work. Not that everyone shouldn't do it but it doesn't tend to add much value to the end product. It is human nature to overlook your own mistakes. In HW development, separate people verify and validate everything. The cost of a mistake getting through is too high to just hope it is all good. The point is that mistakes will always happen. You shouldn't blame staff for being human but the mistakes can't get out the door. If it's that important, a second set of eyes needs to be there IMO. However since this is a post office, really the important thing for the customer is to get in and out as quick as they can. The major complaint is probably the waiting time. So in one sense the employees are helping customer satisfaction by getting them processed quickly!
- chapium 11y ago
  Perfect recipe for getting everyone to play it safe, never learn and someday when the guru on the team leaves the stress level skyrockets and you suddenly find out many have been giving out their resume for months and suddenly finding work elsewhere. Also a recipe for a lack of transparency leading eventually to catastrophic failure.
- dawnbreez 11y ago
  In an ideal world, yes. This world is not ideal. You'll want a caveat: talk to the people who are having trouble, _and make it clear that you're not just here to yell at them_. Your goal isn't to punish, it's to teach. Punishment is useless if you don't tell the person what they did wrong, or if you don't let them fix their mistake.
- ScottBurson 11y ago
  You've been downvoted, but I think you're right. These workers have no sense of the damage they could be doing -- if a package gets lost, for example, because of their error. They need to be made to feel it personally somehow. At the very least they should know that if something goes wrong because of their error and the business is held liable, they will be fired. If there's no way to know which worker committed the error, maybe that's the first thing that should be fixed. Bonuses for error-free performance are also a good idea. I'm all for treating workers well, but it goes both ways: the workers also need to treat the job well.
- TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago
  Penalize them financially for making mistakes - that is illegal in Australia, see https://www.fairwork.gov.au/pay/deducting-pay-and-overpayments https://www.fairwork.gov.au/pay/deducting-pay-and-overpaymen...
waspleg 11y ago
Maybe you should handle the "unusual" transactions? I bet you don't pay them much - maybe not even enough to live on (that would definitely be the case here in the US I don't know about Australia). I've worked shitty retail jobs (hotels) before, for years, if you're trying to assess their "status" they'll just lie to you to get you to leave them alone. A checklist is just an extra hurdle when it's busy (and even when it's not). I've never been a manager so I'm not sure what to tell you as far as motivation. I think money might help. I'm sure you have your pets and the other employees will resent those people and you for having them. Maybe letting them vote on shift leaders or something so it's not you correcting them but someone they may already like/trust. When you have people living on nothing they will perpetually be in a survival mindset - which is to say, cut-throat and self focused. I doubt whatever you want them to do is of any real concern to them and I doubt you can make it that way without spending money and showing that you actually care about the person and not just the job. I can say for certain though, you'd be hard pressed to get people to hate you more and faster than to try to micromanage them. Your employee turn over will increase which will just mean more people for you to try to train "the right way".
- such_a_casual 11y ago
  Australia has a high minimum wage.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago
    From https://www.fairwork.gov.au/how-we-will-help/templates-and-guides/fact-sheets/minimum-workplace-entitlements/minimum-wages https://www.fairwork.gov.au/how-we-will-help/templates-and-g... The (Australian) national minimum wage is currently $17.29 per hour or $656.90 per 38 hour week (before tax). Casual employees covered by the national minimum wage also get at least a 25 per cent casual loading.
erikb 11y ago
People becoming lazy is a sign having no purpose. That's where the management comes into play. The best thing that can be done is giving people purpose. The next best thing is punishment and bonusses. And if that doesn't work people can be made to monitor each other when punishing one gains a bonus for the other (that's how the train ticket inspectors are made to check your tickets and not do favours to you). Go with purpose first and don't assume it's the wrong path if it doesn't work at first. It's a hard path. Some simple things to start with: Do you ask your employees to provide input? Do you try to understand their input and adapt the company and processes accordingly? Do you show them how well the company does when they do their job well and how much it costs all of you when they do a mistake? Think of games. Show people numbers to optimize and they will do that because that's what we like to do! Please come back and tell us your results from trying, maybe also start writing a blog. That's how you can interact with other managers to learn from each other, and to some degree to not feel too alone. ;-)
- Sammi 11y ago
  Yes exactly. You want people to take ownership of their work. To put their personal and professional pride into the work. Simply, you do this by involving people in the decisions on how to do the work. Then they are doing what they decided to do. It's theirs. Open a discussion. Take input. Play Socrates. Steer the discussion when it goes of track, but make sure that people still feel in control. That they have control, and that they matter. People want meaning and purpose most of all. This may sound Machiavellian, but people can be lured and persuaded into doing something they otherwise wouldn't, but they have to feel they made the choice themselves.
GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
Lots of people in lots of jobs make mistakes when they're busy or distracted or doing something unusual.
anon4 11y ago
Maybe you need more people to handle the surge? There are hard physical limits on how much attention a person can pay.
pmorici 11y ago
Automate as much as possible to make it difficult to make a mistake. Check lists are a good start. Keep aggregate stats on overall quality and at regular team meetings set goals for improving the stats of the group overall in small increments. Give praise of each improvement and then make a new goal. Privately keep stats on individuals if there is someone who is an outlier in terms if mistakes talk with them privately about how they feel about the job in general and how it might be effecting their mistake performance if they don't improve you might have to find a replacement. Realistically though there is always going to be some number of mistakes unless you have both automated double checking and a second human in the loop checking everything.
chris_wot 11y ago
If it's an issue of double-checking, have you considered a "peer-review" system? In other words, they have a checklist and the tasks that need double checking must get checked off by another staff member and signed off on. You'd want to limit it to only things where you notice mistakes. But sure if it's practical, just an idea. But it would take yourself out of the equation and might make peer pressure work for you.

isolate 11y ago

Penalize them financially for making mistakes or give a bonus for not making mistakes.

pheroden 11y ago
This is probably illegal (garnishing for mistakes), so check with you local labour laws before doing this. Though I would recommend against this unless you want employees quitting or stealing from you.
- isolate 11y ago
  Yeah, it's a good point. Carrots might work better than sticks. You can always fire people for incompetence though.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- kbenson 11y ago
  Even if you just bonus and don't penalize, if you do it often and regular, it becomes an expectred portion of compensation, and the lack of the bonus becomes the penalty. It does require skipping or reducing the next round of raises in lieu of the bonus structure though, unless you are fine with just paying out more money to employees to reduce problems (which for some people and/or some situations is fine).
gluggymug 11y ago
That's bad advice. Just going to cause resentment IMO. The concept of double checking your own work doesn't really fly in engineering work. Not that everyone shouldn't do it but it doesn't tend to add much value to the end product. It is human nature to overlook your own mistakes. In HW development, separate people verify and validate everything. The cost of a mistake getting through is too high to just hope it is all good. The point is that mistakes will always happen. You shouldn't blame staff for being human but the mistakes can't get out the door. If it's that important, a second set of eyes needs to be there IMO. However since this is a post office, really the important thing for the customer is to get in and out as quick as they can. The major complaint is probably the waiting time. So in one sense the employees are helping customer satisfaction by getting them processed quickly!
chapium 11y ago
Perfect recipe for getting everyone to play it safe, never learn and someday when the guru on the team leaves the stress level skyrockets and you suddenly find out many have been giving out their resume for months and suddenly finding work elsewhere. Also a recipe for a lack of transparency leading eventually to catastrophic failure.
dawnbreez 11y ago
In an ideal world, yes. This world is not ideal. You'll want a caveat: talk to the people who are having trouble, _and make it clear that you're not just here to yell at them_. Your goal isn't to punish, it's to teach. Punishment is useless if you don't tell the person what they did wrong, or if you don't let them fix their mistake.
ScottBurson 11y ago
You've been downvoted, but I think you're right. These workers have no sense of the damage they could be doing -- if a package gets lost, for example, because of their error. They need to be made to feel it personally somehow. At the very least they should know that if something goes wrong because of their error and the business is held liable, they will be fired. If there's no way to know which worker committed the error, maybe that's the first thing that should be fixed. Bonuses for error-free performance are also a good idea. I'm all for treating workers well, but it goes both ways: the workers also need to treat the job well.
TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago
Penalize them financially for making mistakes - that is illegal in Australia, see https://www.fairwork.gov.au/pay/deducting-pay-and-overpayments https://www.fairwork.gov.au/pay/deducting-pay-and-overpaymen...

waspleg 11y ago

Maybe you should handle the "unusual" transactions? I bet you don't pay them much - maybe not even enough to live on (that would definitely be the case here in the US I don't know about Australia). I've worked shitty retail jobs (hotels) before, for years, if you're trying to assess their "status" they'll just lie to you to get you to leave them alone. A checklist is just an extra hurdle when it's busy (and even when it's not). I've never been a manager so I'm not sure what to tell you as far as motivation. I think money might help. I'm sure you have your pets and the other employees will resent those people and you for having them. Maybe letting them vote on shift leaders or something so it's not you correcting them but someone they may already like/trust. When you have people living on nothing they will perpetually be in a survival mindset - which is to say, cut-throat and self focused. I doubt whatever you want them to do is of any real concern to them and I doubt you can make it that way without spending money and showing that you actually care about the person and not just the job. I can say for certain though, you'd be hard pressed to get people to hate you more and faster than to try to micromanage them. Your employee turn over will increase which will just mean more people for you to try to train "the right way".

such_a_casual 11y ago
Australia has a high minimum wage.
- TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago
  From https://www.fairwork.gov.au/how-we-will-help/templates-and-guides/fact-sheets/minimum-workplace-entitlements/minimum-wages https://www.fairwork.gov.au/how-we-will-help/templates-and-g... The (Australian) national minimum wage is currently $17.29 per hour or $656.90 per 38 hour week (before tax). Casual employees covered by the national minimum wage also get at least a 25 per cent casual loading.

erikb 11y ago

People becoming lazy is a sign having no purpose. That's where the management comes into play. The best thing that can be done is giving people purpose. The next best thing is punishment and bonusses. And if that doesn't work people can be made to monitor each other when punishing one gains a bonus for the other (that's how the train ticket inspectors are made to check your tickets and not do favours to you). Go with purpose first and don't assume it's the wrong path if it doesn't work at first. It's a hard path. Some simple things to start with: Do you ask your employees to provide input? Do you try to understand their input and adapt the company and processes accordingly? Do you show them how well the company does when they do their job well and how much it costs all of you when they do a mistake? Think of games. Show people numbers to optimize and they will do that because that's what we like to do! Please come back and tell us your results from trying, maybe also start writing a blog. That's how you can interact with other managers to learn from each other, and to some degree to not feel too alone. ;-)

Sammi 11y ago
Yes exactly. You want people to take ownership of their work. To put their personal and professional pride into the work. Simply, you do this by involving people in the decisions on how to do the work. Then they are doing what they decided to do. It's theirs. Open a discussion. Take input. Play Socrates. Steer the discussion when it goes of track, but make sure that people still feel in control. That they have control, and that they matter. People want meaning and purpose most of all. This may sound Machiavellian, but people can be lured and persuaded into doing something they otherwise wouldn't, but they have to feel they made the choice themselves.

GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago

Lots of people in lots of jobs make mistakes when they're busy or distracted or doing something unusual.

anon4 11y ago

Maybe you need more people to handle the surge? There are hard physical limits on how much attention a person can pay.

pmorici 11y ago

Automate as much as possible to make it difficult to make a mistake. Check lists are a good start. Keep aggregate stats on overall quality and at regular team meetings set goals for improving the stats of the group overall in small increments. Give praise of each improvement and then make a new goal. Privately keep stats on individuals if there is someone who is an outlier in terms if mistakes talk with them privately about how they feel about the job in general and how it might be effecting their mistake performance if they don't improve you might have to find a replacement. Realistically though there is always going to be some number of mistakes unless you have both automated double checking and a second human in the loop checking everything.

chris_wot 11y ago

If it's an issue of double-checking, have you considered a "peer-review" system? In other words, they have a checklist and the tasks that need double checking must get checked off by another staff member and signed off on. You'd want to limit it to only things where you notice mistakes. But sure if it's practical, just an idea. But it would take yourself out of the equation and might make peer pressure work for you.