How do I make my Employees Accountable?
I run an enterprise with 20 employees and I am finding it difficult to make my employees accountable.
Last Friday I received an email from my clients complaining about disruption in services. I was left with no other option except to apologise and give a commitment to him that it will not happen again. I am not sure if I have the ability/control over these occurrences. Yet I need to go along with the flow and give commitment to my clients despite my inability.
We, on an organisation front have been trying to put processes in place but somehow they work fine for the next few days and thereafter the situation is back to square one.
On dwelling deeper into this situation, I realised it is a plain simple human error. Customer has all the right to shout at me. Somehow the employees don’t seem to be accountable. How do we handle this?
XYC.in says:
- All businesses are people centric. People are the key factor for any business growth/success. Companies can overcome these issues by having detailed Job Description/Roles of each individual employee
- Fix the KRA (Key Responsibility Area) in the beginning of the year or at the time of joining. This will give lot of clarity to the individual and to the management. Most of the time there is mismatch as organisations do not give clarity on the deliverables /expectations. Employees feel they have given their best but organisations don’t think so. Clients are bombarding on one side, employees are of the view they are working hard and giving their best shot. There is total chaos.
- To overcome situations like this, we should have robust system in place covering job responsibilities /KRA/Appraisals. There should be system in place for feedback mechanism. These steps will help bring down the business risk to considerable level .Employees will have more clarity and they will know what they are accountable for.
- A detailed org business plan can be prepared and from there will stem out the Department / Individual KRA’s at all levels. This will give more realistic KRA’s and more so it will be in line with business goals of the organization.
- Organizations can set up service levels among various departments. The success level is to monitor SLAs regularly / conduct regular audit. With this, departments get more clarity and will become more accountable.
- Most of the time, there is no communication channel to monitor progress. Even if this exists, it is not followed to the hilt. MIS parameters can be set at various levels and this will act key indicator of accountability.
People issues cannot be addressed by business owner directly. There need to be a buffer between employer and employee. Wherever there is direct intervention by the business owner, situation like deadlock can happen. Before a solution is sought, employee would have floated his CV in the market and he is out in next 2-3 months. This is a vicious circle. Business owner wants 200% commitment as he doesn’t mind working late nights / holidays and the employers expects the same from employees. While for employee it is work life balance / personal commitments, etc. This is a fine line and both need to be managed as both are right from their perspective and business goals need to be met. In such organisations HR Acts as a good buffer.
Editor’s note: A very pertinent question indeed. You, as a startup or an employee would be facing similar problems. The solutions would have worked for a few but with most it remains theory. Do share with us instances or that have worked.
About the author: Manmeet is HR Professional with 21 yrs of experience. From last 8 yrs he has been supporting startups and SME’s in HR space though his company XYC. Avid golfer and very passionate about Human Resources implementation.
