February 2006 Successful Meetings magazine
As a leader, you want your employees to be happy, productive, and loyal. Indeed, it's your job to create conditions that facilitate these qualities. The reason you're not always as successful as you'd like to be boils down to two factors: information and time. It's hard to know what problems your team is facing, solve them while showing your people you care, and still handle all the other tasks on your plate. The good news is that there is a proven way to stay on top of what your employees really want and need. It's a concept from the health-care arena called "rounding" and it translates nicely to the world of business management.
Rounding is what doctors in hospitals have traditionally done to check on patients. The same idea can be used in business, with a CEO, VP, or department manager "making the rounds" to check on the status of his or her employees. Rounding is about gathering information in a structured way. It's proactive, not reactive—it's a way to get a handle on problems before they occur and also to reinforce positive and profitable behaviors. Best of all, it's an efficient system that yields maximum ROI.
In a business setting, rounding involves a leader taking an hour a day to touch base with employees, make a personal connection, find out what's going well, and determine what improvements can be made. Quite simply, it's a way to gather the information you need to do your job and do it well, in a timely and efficient manner.
Here are five critical things your employees want from you, along with an explanation of how rounding helps you accomplish them:
1. People don't leave their "team"—they leave their direct supervisor. Employees want a manager who cares about them and values their contribution. The number-one reason people leave their jobs is because they feel they are not valued. By taking the time every day to make a human connection with your employees—and to really listen and respond to their needs—you automatically build strong relationships with all of your employees.
2. Oftentimes, people complain amongst themselves about inefficient systems and processes without bringing them to the attention of their direct superiors. Rounding opens up avenues to solve these problems and gives both morale and productivity a boost.
3. Employees want opportunities for professional development. Rounding is a natural avenue for discovering whose skill sets need improvement and for instigating professional development discussions. When you're making your daily rounds, it's easy enough to suggest training to someone who clearly needs it, or to ask one employee to mentor another. Rounding also gives you many opportunities to help high performers move to an even higher level. Just say something like: "We want to keep you in our organization and are committed to helping you excel personally and professionally. Is there any training that you feel might be helpful for you?"
4. Employees want to be recognized and rewarded for doing a good job. A big part of the rounding process involves asking people who among their peers is demonstrating exceptional performance—and then passing the compliments on. It's a brilliant way to build morale, as praise from one's peers is probably the most meaningful kind. It builds an emotional bank account that's invaluable for productivity and morale.
5. Employees don't want to work with low performers. Nothing makes employees as discouraged and resentful as having to co-exist with people who don't pull their own weight. In fact, low performers usually drive high performers out the door. Rounding naturally solves this problem. When you're in touch with all your employees on a daily basis, it doesn't take long to see which employees are slacking off or making life difficult for everyone else.
Quint Studer, a former hospital president and 20-year health-care veteran, is founder and CEO of Studer Group, an executive coaching firm and national learning lab headquartered in Gulf Breeze, FL. He is also the author of Hardwiring Excellence: Purpose, Worthwhile Work, Making a Difference (Fire Starter Publishing, 2004). Copies can be purchased online at www.studergroup.com.