How Much Trust Is Too Much? – Oversight In A Small Business
The problem is that once we hire these employees, we can tend to wash our hands of these tasks. We either don’t want to deal with the tasks and issues or we don’t know enough to ask the right questions or provide oversight. Without realizing it, we end up placing a level of trust in these people that we don’t even give to family members. That trust isn’t there because it’s been earned, but because it’s convenient.
That trust could be the end of your business. I’m not saying that because I believe your employees are untrustworthy, but because you never know that they aren’t as trustworthy as you believe until it’s too late. Further, they could be the most trustworthy people in the world, but could be incompetent.
By not monitoring your employees, they can destroy your business in three ways:
- They outright steal from you. Stealing can be small things like reams of paper or you can walk in one morning with the accounting clerk missing and the bank account at zero.
- They can be making critical errors that not only hurt your business in the short term, but that can really come back and bite you in the long term. It could be as simple as constant rudeness to customers on the phone or it could be major tax discrepancies that end up costing massive fines and penalties.
- They quit unexpectedly and you have no idea how to do their job, where the important information is located, and everything else in the business suffers while you try to figure it out.
Now, we’ve talked about the courtesy system in the past and I’m not advocating a micro-management, dictatorial management style. However, too many small business owners assume that once they have an employee, they don’t have to worry about those tasks and issues any more. That’s the mistake.
Often times, a small business owner has a spouse, adult child or other family member that is interested in helping out, but doesn’t have the time or interest in an employee position (you may not be able to afford to pay them anyways). Asking that person for help with the oversight could be a great way to involve them and decrease the burden on you. Oversight usually doesn’t require a large amount of time and it keeps another set of eyes on what’s going on. If something is suspicious, it is much more likely to be brought to your attention.
This is a great way to keep communication open, decrease your workload, and have another family member invested in the company.
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