At a Burger King in Lincoln, Nebraska, a manager, along with her fellow co-workers posted a sign on the front of their restaurant, “Sorry We Quit”. After going viral on Facebook, the manager revealed their horrid work conditions. I’m not aiming this blog at Burger King, or Facebook, but rather the issue of short-handed staffing across all industries, door industry included, and across all the country.
Due to recent events around the nation, many companies are required or pushed to enforce new regulations for the business and for employees. Some businesses have shifted all work efforts to remote locations, some organizations had to make tough decisions on whether to keep the same amount of employees and for employees this brings the fear of the unknown. Another factor businesses had to endure was restrictions of key employees, for many small businesses you may not have numerous people to perform the same tasks – if your project manager gets sick or has underlying health conditions, there may be problems for the business. Zip Schedules published an insightful article about the most common mistakes businesses make when short staffed.
Mistake #1 – failure to admit to staff that the business is short staffed. Business leaders need to honestly communicate with all departments and personnel. Not only the right thing to do, but it allows staff emotions, experiences, to be recognized and validated. Ignoring the situation, or minimizing an employee’s experience, only serves to drive staff to resign.
Mistake #2 – failure to identify where the issue originated and why it continues. Maybe the reason lies in COVID but it could also be long term morale or poor recruiting or many other causes. If there becomes a pattern of employees leaving or continuously taking off work, it is imperative for the company to determine the core reasons.
Depending on whether your workplace is dealing with short staffed teams due to COVID, unhappy employees or even lack of recruiting properly, it is important to understand and be prepared for abnormal changes. And if you are not in a position where this is affecting you, it is in your best interest to acknowledge the impacts it can bring.
Ian Oxman, Owner, Software for Hardware LLC., is based in Atlanta, GA. You can reach Ian at Ian@softwareforhardware.com
