Behaving better

Diego Cervo | Dreamstime.comConsider the things your employees do that you wish they wouldn’t – forgetting to turn off cell phones during design meetings, aggressively sharing political or religious views with employees and customers or being terse with potential customers on the phone. None of these behaviors come from bad people, but they are bad habits that irritate customers and coworkers alike.

If you assume there’s nothing you can do about such all-too-human flaws and foibles, think again. You can legislate good behavior – and what’s more, the vast majority of employees will be glad you did.

Don’t assume people will feel you’re infringing on their rights when you create a set of behavioral rules. Most of them are as irritated by the offenders as you and your customers are. Besides, most people appreciate having official guidelines – it eliminates their own confusion as well as that of their coworkers.

You might assume that, say, knocking before entering someone’s office is a common-sense behavior. But it’s not always. For people who grew up in a family with lots of siblings, few bathrooms and even fewer boundaries, knocking on doors might feel like a needless formality. In other words, common sense is a subjective concept, depending in part on an individual’s background. Still, it’s very important that every employee display behavior that’s consistent with company standards and aligned with desired outcomes. 

Obviously, you want employees to leave a positive impression on customers. And it’s also important for morale to have everyone behaving in appropriate ways. Employees who frequently behave in ways that their coworkers deem inappropriate are certainly not contributing to a happy, unified, productive team. And here’s the real bottom line: If you don’t spell out which behaviors are acceptable and which are not, you can’t hold people accountable for them.
The best way to get a handle on people’s behavior is to develop a “Standards of Behavior” contract and have everyone, from CEO to receptionist, sign it. This document can address any and all aspects of behavior at work: from interaction with clients to phone etiquette to “good manners” (knocking on doors) to “positive attitude” markers (smiling or saying thank you).

Interested in creating a Standards of Behavior contract for your company? Try the following tips:

Seek input from all employees in creating the document. Put together a Standards Team to spearhead the initiative and create the first draft. Be sure everyone has a chance to review the document and provide input before it’s finalized. You want to create buy-in, and that requires companywide participation.

Align desired behaviors with corporate goals and desired outcomes. Look at your organization’s long-term goals and areas that need improvement. You must be able to measure the success of your standards by seeing an impact in many of the key metrics of your operation, whether those are increased customer satisfaction, reduced rejects or other measures.

Be crystal clear and very specific in your wording. Don’t write “display a positive attitude.” Do write “smile, make eye contact and greet customers by name.” Don’t worry about insulting people’s intelligence. For instance, if you don’t want common “slang” phrases used with customers, you need to identify them right up front. For example, try this phone etiquette directive: Avoid phrases like “OK,” “Yeah,” “Hold on,” “Honey” and “See ya.”

Hold a ceremonial Standards of Behavior roll out. Once you have finalized your Standards of Behavior document, it’s time to implement it. Hold an employee forum or companywide meeting in which you introduce the standards and distribute pledges for everyone to sign. You might want to create an event around your CEO and leadership team signing the pledge. You may even hold activities designed to educate employees about some of the points. Make it fun. But do have everyone sign a pledge – it’s amazing how much more seriously people take rules when they’ve signed on the dotted line.

Hold people accountable when they violate a standard. Make sure all employees know they’ll be held accountable for the behaviors outlined in the Standards of Behavior document. Then, just do it. How you hold them accountable is up to you. Sometimes a simple meeting in which you show an employee the signed pledge and point out her error is sufficient. Other times, you might need to write her up or take more drastic disciplinary measures. But one thing is clear: The Standards of Behavior pledge gives you something to hold people accountable to. It’s worth implementing for that reason alone.

Create a designated Standard of the Month. Every month, highlight a specific standard. This will boost awareness of the standards in general and will get people thinking about how that specific one applies to their daily lives. Let’s say, for example, that you decide to focus on your policy for dealing with disgruntled customers. At the beginning of the month, a reminder e-mail detailing the policy is sent out. Next, you might ask employees to write up real-life or hypothetical scenarios in which they must deal with angry or dissatisfied customers. Finally, you might hold a companywide forum in which you recruit people to act out both sides of a conflict: the disgruntled customer and the employee trying to repair the situation.

Update the Standards of Behavior. The standards are dynamic and will need to be updated from time to time. One or two directives may not work as intended and may need to be changed. You may also discover new standards that need to be added as your company grows and evolves in new directions. Make changes as necessary.

Have new applicants sign it right up front. Before you even interview prospective new employees, have them read and sign your Standards of Behavior. You will be able to eliminate people from the race up front if they visibly balk at conforming to your corporate culture. But more important, when you do hire someone, there will be no doubt in his mind what you expect of him. If he is going to have trouble meeting your standards, you will probably know during the initial probationary period. 

Just knowing that a Standards of Behavior document exists – and knowing that their signature is affixed to a pledge to uphold it – is enough to keep employees on their toes. It creates an extra boost of awareness that affects day-to-day behavior. It creates the same behavior expectations for the entire team. Best of all, it functions as a tidal pull on problem employees, bringing them up to a higher level of performance.

Obviously, when overall performance improves, so does the quality of your company, the satisfaction level of your customers, and – last but not least – your bottom line.

Studer is the author of “Results That Last: Hardwiring Behaviors That Will Take Your Company to the Top.” He can be reached through his Web site, www.studergroup.com.