Make Sure Your Employees Make the Connection

Employee duties and how well they are performed are directly linked to your company’s profits. But staff members aren’t always clear on how their jobs translate into a healthy bottom line. It’s important for employees to understand how their individual duties fit into your company’s big financial picture.

Here are a couple of ways to ensure that your staff members keep the company’s bottom line in mind:

• Ask each employee to write his or her own job description to explain how that employee makes money for the firm. Supervisors can help staff members fine-tune these descriptions. In time, managers and their staffs will be able to discuss each work assignment in terms of how it relates to company profits.
• Urge every employee to write a brief description of what your company makes or sells. Ask them to cast their descriptions in terms of various company goals, such as quality, customer retention and increased customer referrals.

Make your employees aware that these exercises aren’t just busywork, but that you value their ideas and notions about how they contribute to the firm’s financial success.

For that matter, you can turn the project into a contest. Consider giving an award for the top three entries, perhaps a lunch out or a night on the town. It’s a great way to motivate employees to earn more money for the company — and ultimately for themselves.