What’s the #1 Challenge You Face with Employees?

If I were to ask you, “What is the #1 challenge you face with employees?”, how many of you would list one or more of the things below?

Well, that’s exactly what I did at my expo booth at the Florida Attractions Association conference in June.  I wanted to know what people were struggling with in terms of employee behavior and performance.  It was interesting because some people grabbed a marker right away and added their thoughts to the list, while others needed time to ponder the question for a bit.  Either way, it was fascinating to hear their perspectives.

Of course me being me, I had to ask where they thought these behaviors came from.  Some offered a quizzical look and said, “I just don’t know”.  Others sheepishly said, “well, if I’m being honest, it probably stems from something I did… or didn’t do.”

I would tend to agree that a lot of these can relate back to the environment created by the leader and the example they are setting.  That said, that might not be the entire story.

To dig a little deeper, we have to ask the question that we seem to get asked a lot… why?

• Why won’t your employees do paperwork?
• Why don’t your employees have passion for the job?
• Why is product quality lacking?
• You get the idea…

But you can’t stop there.  You may ask, “Why don’t employees do paperwork?”  There could literally be dozens of reasons:

• They don’t know how.
• They don’t have time.
• They don’t understand its importance.
• And so on…

From here, you then have to ask “WHY” again, and for each possible answer.

• Why don’t they know how?
• Why don’t they have time?
• Why don’t they understand the importance?

Let’s tackle one of these… we’ve discovered that they actually DO know how, but say they don’t have time.  Okay.

• Why don’t they have time? For grins and giggles, we’ll say this person is a tour guide at your facility.  They are currently scheduled for 6 hour shifts, with their first tour starting 30 minutes after they clock in, and their last tour usually ending 15 minutes before the end of their shift.  They do three 1.5 hour tours a day, which means they are on tour 4.5 hours out of their 6 hour shift.  They need time to rest in between, eat and prep for the next tour.  Traditionally, the paperwork has been done at the end of the shift.  Your tour guides are saying that 15 minutes (when they are tired from 3 tours) is not enough time to get the paperwork done.

If you then ask “why is that not enough time to get the paperwork done?”, that leads to… “how long does the paperwork really take?”  You realize that to be done correctly, to summarize and close out all three tours, it takes about 30 minutes.

So no, the 15 minutes at the end of the day are not enough.

So we go back to why…

• Why is the paperwork done at the end of the shift?”  Because that’s when it’s always been done….  (hopefully you see the opportunity here!)
• Why can’t the paperwork be done in chunks, closing out the tours as you go?  That way you are only taking 10 minutes at the end of each tour, and at the end of the shift they should have time to do the last one and get out on time.

So that’s one possible solution to one possible cause of the problem. You give that a try and see if it works.  Are your employees now doing their paperwork on a more regular basis?  If so, great! If not, back to the drawing board to try something else.

And if you do find that something you did (or didn’t do) caused these situations, take that as good news.  If you were part of the problem, you know where to look to find the solution.

Matt Heller
Distinguished author, speaker, and industry veteran Matt Heller can sum up what he does in three simple words: Helping Leaders Lead.  Matt’s firm, Performance Optimist Consulting, has worked with some of the largest attraction operators in the United States, including Six Flags, Cedar Fair, Universal Studios, Apex Parks Group, and Herschend Family Entertainment, along with countless other parks, zoos, museums, and aquariums.  Matt focuses on leadership development, guest service training, eliminating employee burnout, and reducing turnover.