One of the most common recurring topics between me and my fellow entrepreneurs is how to deal with truly toxic customers.
First, it’s important to define what kind of behavior DOESN’T fall into this category. Customers who are willing to give honest feedback, both positive and negative, are a gold mine. Hearing that we aren’t living up to expectations is always painful, but when our customers work with us to help us serve them better, the relationship, and the work, improves exponentially. This is not surprising – we all know coaching works wonders when managing employees and it’s no different when managing other work relationships.
We fire many more customers than we are fired from, and we really only do it for three reasons. They ask us to do unethical or illegal things, they lie to us, or they treat our team disrespectfully. The third bucket involves a whole host of sins. Over the years, we’ve had customers who threaten us, frequently pay late and/or repeatedly use an abusive or belittling tone when interacting with us. We’ve even had customers who regularly decline to respond to our requests and then blame us for not being able to service them appropriately.
The bottom line is, you cannot claim to care about culture and creating a healthy work environment, while also letting this behavior occur. It’s a strategic choice to shield our employees from this kind of abuse because it keeps them fresh and engaged for the customers who value our expertise and who treat the team as the professionals they are. And that, in turn, allows us to create more and more happy customers.
CEO, Fine Point Consulting
The biggest asset of every business is its employees. It only makes sense that keeping this living and breathing asset healthy and happy would be a top priority. Workplace wellness doesn’t have to mean a state-of-the-art employee gym and in-house personal trainer.
Any size of company can encourage healthy living and offer creative incentives to employees. The best part is it can all be done without spending a lot of money and time putting together a plan, and the payback is high. Wellness programs have been proven to raise employee engagement levels, reduced sick days, and decreased healthcare costs.
Every company culture is unique, bring your dog to work day may be an “emotional up-lifter” for one business but not a great fit in another. A customized wellness program that benefits your employees is a worthwhile effort.
Here are 10 simple Wellness Program ideas to incorporate into your work environment:
1. Onsite Wellness Services: Chair massages, meditation sessions, yoga instruction, acupuncture and more can be valuable wellness services made available at low cost to employees.
2. Healthy Snacks: Employee break areas should be stocked with plenty of healthy low-fat snacks. These days there are both nutritious and delicious snack options available.
3. No-Stress Zones: Every office needs at least one “safe” area where employees can de-stress after a particularly tough day. Create space in your building where employees can get this out of their system.
4. Employee Assistance Programs: These inexpensive programs give employees the ability to call a counselor for confidential support when they need it the most.
5. Fitness on the Job: Establish a workout area in your workplace by investing in second-hand gym equipment and floor mats. Take exercise outside and encourage lunchtime walks. Buy inexpensive fitness trackers to help employees keep track of their progress.
7. Online Wellness: There are many free and low-cost wellness apps and web tools for managing weight, blood pressure, diabetes, stress, smoking cessation, and more.
8. Workshops: Invite various health and wellness vendors and practitioners in your area to conduct wellness workshops in a “brown bag” lunch format.
9. Incentive rewards: A rewards-based system is a fun way to encourage favorable results. Regular recognition, rewards, and incentives help employees stick to their wellness goals.
10. Nurse Hotline: A live telephone nurse hotline can be used to help employees get the help they need before spending an expensive stay in the hospital emergency care center.
Willard Le Grand Bundy may not be a familiar name, but in 1888 he invented something that has become a daily part of life for millions of workers, the Time Clock! This mechanical employee time clock would stamp day and time information on a thick paper card, hence the name 'timecard'.
The ingenious invention allowed factory owners an actual record of the hours worked by each employee. It not only protected business owners by making sure employees worked the number of hours they claimed, it also protected employees by making it much more difficult for employers to cheat them out of their wages.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Bundy’s company merged with several other time-keeping outfits, forming the International Time Recorder Company. Later the company became part of International Business Machines, or IBM, one of the world-wide leaders in workplace technologies.
When commercial time clock software made its appearance in the 1990s, businesses started moving away from mechanical and electrical time clocks that were subject to failure.
It was revolutionary! Time clock software allowed business owners to enjoy the benefits of reduced payroll processing costs by making it quick and easy to go directly from time clock to paycheck with increased efficiency.
“They are very good at tracking down benefits issues and helping with policies to prevent future HR issues.”
Brian Johnson, SVP Business Operations
Simple Machines
Simple Machines, Inc., a custom ASIC company, has grown exponentially in the past six years since introducing a new architecture for rapidly changing computing demands.
As the Senior Vice President of business operations, Brian Johnson has a busy schedule, especially with the immense growth Simple Machines has seen. This has necessitated some assistance in the realm of HR administration.
Fine Point Consulting is a boutique consulting firm offering expert-level professional accounting & human resources services customized to meet your budget. We help entrepreneurs who are trying to scale fast get more done and stay lean.
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