Your Guide to Automotive Industry Digital Marketing

By Brian M. Hosenfeld, President, Performance Aftermarket Consulting

How to apply army training tactics to improve the performance of your employees.

I know what you’re thinking!  Lots of yelling and some carefully chosen four letter words.  Push-ups in the parking lot and obstacle course mayhem!   Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed this part of being a Training NCO during my time in the military.  However, the goal was to build confident and competent soldiers who are technically and tactically proficient.

Today’s employees need just as much nurturing and guidance as those brand new soldiers entering the military.  With all the demands on our time, it’s important to prioritize your responsibilities and set the time aside to accomplish those goals.  Making time to mentor, guide and counsel your employees will net you an engaged and dynamic worker.  Think back to those folks who mentored you as you grew in your professional career.  Did they sit down with you for a few minutes and read a prepared statement of how you performed or did they engage you with questions and respond with guidance?  The mentors I’ve had certainly have made me think and have been straight-talking about my strengths and weaknesses.

How can we develop employees to think on their own, be more motivated and responsible?  One of the simplest ways is a regimented counseling program.

Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE hates that yearly performance appraisal that some companies demand their managers give to their employees.  The supervisor hates writing them, and the employee hates the pretentious waste of their time.  Does it really get anyone anywhere?  Most of the time, no.  What are your goals?  Write the 15 appraisals, sit down with each employee for fifteen or twenty minutes and let them know if they’re getting a raise?  If that’s the process you’ve been following, I feel sorry for you and the employee!  Here are some tips I’ve learned over the years and the start of a process I’ve adapted using the foundation I learned yelling at soldiers…

1. Get the employee involved! Instead of sitting down wracking your brain on what to say about employee X, sit down and interview them instead!  Ask lots of open end questions and take plenty of notes.  Some good questions can be, “How do you think things went for you in the last 120 days?”  Or ask a specific question about a recent situation.  “You had a customer upset due to a delivery issue.  How do you think you handled it?  What could you have done better?  How will you handle it next time?”  I have a form with 12 standard questions to ask during a counseling session to help get the employee thinking about their performance.  Typically, I’ll ask another 3-5 on something specific the employee did.  You’ll achieve one very important goal with this first step.  You’ll get your employee engaged and thinking about their performance and how they performed and what they could do better.  Make sure you let the employee know you will be conducting these interviews and generally what you’ll be discussing.  This gives them time to think about it and begin to form some thoughts on their performance.    Best of all, if the employee knows these sessions are coming, they can start to think of different things to talk about and remind you of the positive things they have done during the evaluation period.  Heck, they may even mention things you weren’t aware of!
2. Summarize your notes! Now that you took the time to actually engage your employee, you can sit down and summarize the key points you talked about.  That task you have been dreading becomes extremely easy!
3. Sit down with the employee and discuss the summary. You’ve done the interview, you’ve written your evaluation and you’ve opened a line of communication that managers and employees rarely get to.  Now have a quick conversation on the key points you recorded, discuss what the employee said they would do to correct issues or take their game to the next level, add in some of your pearls of wisdom and you’re all set!  Best of all, you didn’t just sit down and scribble down notes no one is going to care about or take ownership of; you are DEVELOPING YOUR EMPLOYEES.  Now you know what it means when people say “the performance review shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone!

There are several other follow up steps I teach and some incentives I use to keep the employee engaged and thinking of their performance long after you’ve conducted your counseling.  There are also some critical rules to follow and several important “do’s and don’ts”.  Good employees are difficult to find.  Once you’ve found them, help them get to the next level.  Teach them how to evaluate themselves and be aware of their individual performance.

If you need a Drill Sergeant to pop in and shake up your troops, give me a call!

Author Bio:

Brian M. Hosenfeld is the President of Performance Aftermarket Consulting. His company specializes in Performance Automotive, Truck Accessory, Auto Accessory and Powersports shop marketing and best business practices. Putting his years of experience in leadership, building store inventories and product displays to work for customers all across the Country are Brian’s primary focus.