Another reason that people
advance for not going into business for themselves, especially those who have a
day job, is the dearth of trustworthy employees.
I, for one, have heard of several
people who desired to go into the business of transportation but got
discouraged when they were told about several other businesses that were ruined
by unscrupulous drivers. “You can never be certain of the story they would come
up with at the end of each day” a transportation business owner once
complained. “If it isn't one of a broken down vehicle, it will be one of
arrests by the traffic police. But, rest assured that you are not getting any
remittances that day”. We will come back to how he rescued his business but
first let’s hear from a friend who described his employees as godsends.
Femi works in the
telecommunications sector and has four guys in his employ. One day after close
of business, unbeknownst to his staff, he decided to stay back and finish some
work as his family was out of town and he wasn't keen on returning to an empty
house. At 10 p.m. he called it a day, packed his briefcase and headed for the car
park. As he reached inside his pocket for the car keys, he accidentally pressed
the dial button of his phone lodged in the same pocket. His phone called his
salesman who was already nested in the bedroom with his family. As he picked
the call, he didn't hear Femi on the other end so he said a couple of tentative
“Hellos”. He was about to terminate
the call and redial when he heard the muffled voice of his boss. From what he
could decipher the voice was quite agitated and frightened, he quickly decided
that it was a surreptitiously placed SOS call from his boss. Immediately, he
called two other colleagues and asked them to join him pronto in their boss’
house because he was urgently in need of rescue from marauders. All pleas by his
wife to pull his pyjamas and wear something appropriate fell on deaf ears as
the man picked his baseball bat, hurriedly entered his car and dashed for
Femi's house. The speed with which he took off belongs in the Grand Prix.
Before he arrived the other
colleagues, looking nonplussed, were waiting for him. They were also arguing
with the gatekeeper as to the whereabouts of their boss. The salesman jumped
out of his car and was told that Femi had not gotten home. He went back to his
car and picked his phone to call the police, when he saw the frog-eye headlamps
of Femi's Mercedes turn into the driveway. It was a stunned Femi that emerged
as he saw his staff outside his gate. Amidst laughter at their folly and relief
that he was safe, he explained to them that the call was a mistake and what the
salesman heard was his banter with the office security-guard. Everyone had tears
in their eyes; they from laughing so hard but Femi from being touched by his
employees’ profound affection for him.
When I questioned him about how he
got so lucky with his employees, he thought for a very long time before
answering that he wasn't sure. He said he wasn't paying them fantastically or
motivating them with any other perks. In fact, the salesman had just turned
down an offer which would have paid him twice what Femi did. He chose to remain
without asking for a raise because, in his words, he wanted to help in building
the business. But then, Femi said, “The only difference between me and most
employers is that I am the kind of ‘boss-in-the-trenches’ with my employees. I
identify with them”. I replied that empathy is such a powerful motivator but he
quickly countered that he didn't just empathize with them; he said he went a
step further to identify with them. “Empathy”, he explained “calls us to wear
other people’s shoes to know where it pinches; but identifying calls us to
leave wearing those shoes, such that they are forced to wear the ones we leave
behind. That way, employees and employers are linked together and remain loyal
to each other. They take my business personally and I carry their matter for head” (meaning he is quite
invested in them). The other thing he said he does is to monitor his employees
and they told him that knowing they are being scrutinized inspires them with
self-accountability; and that takes me back to the transportation business
owner.
He rescued his failing shuttle business
by installing trackers in all his buses. Whenever a driver came back with the
usual cock and bull stories, he simply opened his laptop, called up the route
replay of the bus for the driver to take a look and handed him a sack letter. In a
short time, all his drivers sat up and even he told me that he has overheard
them calling him ‘Track-tor’ in their private conversations. When the ticketing
staff also took to helping themselves to the till, he installed point-of-sale
machines (POS) for payment and CCTVs to monitor them. Miraculously, all the
pilferage stopped. It reminds me of my banking days, when mystery shoppers were
dispatched nationwide. After a secretary in the head office got the axe, everybody sat up. We even coined the adage, ‘The fear of the mystery shopper is
the beginning of wisdom”.
I don’t think anyone should claim
again that the fear of bad employees is what is keeping them from going into
business. By employing the carrot-and-stick strategy (identifying with them as the
carrot and monitoring them as the stick) we can get our employees to be dedicated
to our business, as much as we are.
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