Share your company’s 2011 targets with your employees

The New Year has fully come and most people have been back to work with working challenges. New goals and resolutions, new plans, new dreams and new directions are probably also fuelling your thoughts. One of the great challenges your business will probably be facing this year is to meet the company’s targets and increase profit. Recently I had a chat with James, a sales agent in one of the corporate companies and I asked him his company’s targets this year. He says that his main target this year is to increase the number of customers. He knows off-head his target for every month. His sales team has weekly meetings to compare the results with the budget. However when I put the same question to Sophie who works as a sales person in an insurance company, she looked as if the question was addressed to another person. Her response was as brief as this. “How would I ever know? Our managers never share these things with us. They keep everything so secret. They never communicate budgets and results with us.” Well, we don’t have to be magicians to know which of the above people will be more enthusiastic and productive when dealing with customers. As a business owner, you should start the year by sharing with your employees the general targets and objectives of the company. By doing so, you are ensuring that your employees are on the same page and understand the purpose behind the business. Your organisational values, mission, goals, and strategies should be part of your daily operations. As a leader, manager, supervisor or business owner, your role is to set the tone. The power of the leader is to create passion, delegate, and mobilise the troops to join in reaching the company’s objectives. Staff meetings, parties, newsletter are all great way of conveying your company targets to your employees. You will also need to translate your company vision and targets into a meaningful call for action that includes active discussions, teaching and training on the field, mentoring, coaching, and team building. Sharing your targets is a great way of empowering your employees. Empowering employees in any type of business requires that they understand the vision of the business. It requires that the business owner, managers, supervisors share their passion and vision with the entire team. Sharing visions and targets with a team is a real source of magic. Just try it and you will be amazed by the results. At the beginning of every week for instance, do a quick briefing with your employees and give them clear, measurable and realistic instructions. Review the results very often to ensure your team is on track. By doing so, your employees will be filled with the desire to transform that future vision into reality through their daily actions. Sharing your company’s 2011 targets with your employees will empower them to have a strong positive morale, to be motivated to perform responsibly, effectively and professionally. In fact, employees who understand the vision and targets of their companies are often those who feel part of the organization in which they work. They just don’t work for the money. They know why they come to work every morning and they want to be part of the success story of the company. In any business, especially service providers, the most valuable resource is your people. They are those who will take the vision and targets to a touchdown or drop the ball. As a manager and a supervisor, help your team players today to imagine the picture of the year and this will surely fuel them and take your company to its next level of professionalism and profitability in 2011. The author is a customer service consultant and the Publisher of The ServiceMag www.theservicemag.com