How to get the people part of your business right

A business can only exist if it adds value to the marketplace by solving a problem that people have or helping them accomplish a desire they have, however scaling ?the business can only happen when the people part of the business is taken care off

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You as a business owner even with all superhuman effort can only grow ?the business to a particular level, to scale beyond that you will have to invest in your people strategy

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One of the biggest difficulties I observe business have is in getting the people strategy right .

By nature people are the most complex to handle however I have found based on my experience few principles if implemented right can help scale your business at a much faster level

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The People strategy can be broken up into 3 main focus areas

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1.?????? Build the right Culture :

I understand that its easy to say and difficult to implement however there are 2 important factors that build culture

a.?????? A clear Vision and Mission in simple terms why does this business exist . When the business owners are clearly able to articulate the purpose and the Goal what the business is aspiring to achieve it will attract right people who would want to work who share a similar belief in the purpose .

This becomes more important especially in the initial years when business don’t have the money to get the best talent..

when the best talent connects with the purpose I have observed that they are willing to join such companies even that don’t pay well.. a clear example of that if you observe the Non for profit organization have the best talent working for them at very low salary levels

b.?????? Code or a set of values that govern behavior of employees :? Most of the interpersonal problems that happen at work is due to no clear understanding what is the expected behavior.

As each of us come from different cultural and environmental ?setup , something that is ok for one person may not be ok for another person .

Hence the core leadership team should frame a set of code of behavior not more than 10 that are most important to build the right culture which everyone needs to adhere including the business owner..

for example of code of behavior like , treat everyone with respect , all dealing to be fair to customer and fair to the company, open communication etc.

When this code is consistently followed and people who do not adhere to the code are pulled up then that code of behavior becomes the culture of the company

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2.?????? Build the right capability :

The following 3 factors help build capability of employees to help perform their job effectively

a.?????? Right person for the right job : The more we align people to jobs that align with their core strength the better will be the effectiveness on the job. ?

For this for every job role there has to be a clear job profile along with the required attitude and competence, once this is clear then its easy to fit the right person for the right job.

Most of the time we struggle to get the right person for the right job because the business as not invested to spend time to define for each role what is the job responsibilities and to do those responsibilities what is the skill, attitude an competence required .

For each role of the business we should have one person accountable for results, as Jim Collins observes executives with good companies tend to share their titles whereas executives at strong and great companies share what their accountabilities are eg I am accountable for driving revenue into this company

b.?????? Documentation of Standard operating procedure: The biggest problem for customer is inconsistent service or worst still a defective product or service.

There are many ways of providing the product or service however there is one known best way of providing the product or service .. By documenting the known best way of providing the product or service you can ensure a consistent level of service to your customers.

More importantly once any process is documented it becomes easier to identify areas of improvements and keep improving the process . A documentation process will also help in functional training of employees

c.?????? Investing in periodic training of employees ?: ?

• Functional training : This is the process or functional ?training that is required to do the job, this type of training gets easier when you get the documentation right.. the more you improve the documentation the more deeper and enabling the training becomes for new employees
• Soft skill training : ?The best form of training as per my experience is training your employees to think thorough tough issues . The more we train employees to think in a structured way to solve problems the more effective they become. The best form of training that help people think is a “Lean Six Sigma training”. The best companies I worked for had invested lots in their quality program and building capability by training their employees on some quality methodologies .. according to me this is the best investment companies can make in generating capable employees
• Coaching : For the leadership team having a one to one coaching in developing the critical competence’s is very effective ?

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3.?????? Build for execution ?:

The following 4 factors help in building the execution capabilities of employees

a.?????? Give clarity : Communicate a clear Goal to achieve, less is more in driving focus and alignment. For every quarter pick 3 main goals that as a business will focus on achieving .. this brings focus and alignment to the entire team

b.????? Data : ?Have a process of gathering both quantitative and qualitative data to properly fuel decision making . Measuring the right metrics is particularly critical for the senior leadership and teams leaders to engage in weekly conversation with customers and employees

c.?????? Meeting Rhythms: The best way for execution is building a meeting Rhythms daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual meeting

• Daily meeting : The daily huddle for 15 mins has been the most effective routine I have observed . The huddle is used to communicate the priority of the day, the team progress and people to call out were they are stuck.. This routine alone has solved most of the people issues at people get an opportunity every day to voice out their concerns/opinions
• Weekly meeting : 60-90minute discussion to review progress on the quarterly priorities and tap the collective brainpower of the team in addressing one or two main topics
• Monthly meeting : Half? day meeting in which all senior, middle and frontline leaders come together to learn and collaboratively address one or two big issue requiring several hours of effort . These meeting could also be used to reward and recognize their contribution at work
• The quarterly/ annual planning meeting: At this one to three day offsite meeting , leaders update on the growth plans and establish the next quarterly and annual theme

d.????? Structure of reporting : ?

• Functional hierarchy ??: The structure of your reporting hierarchy should be simple and flat so that communication moves fast with less bureaucracy ?
• Process hierarchy : As the business grows there is a need to start aligning teams around projects, product groups, industry segments and geographical regions which then results in a matrix organisation making the structure more complex. The structure usually results in co-dependency of multiple teams to deliver what the customer requires, this is when problem arise when teams start working very efficiently in isolation but from a customer point of view very ineffective a classic case as all have done their job but not as required by the customer .To solve this problem the company to identify 4-9 critical process that drive your business and assign someone specific accountability for each processes with key performance indicators (Better, faster, cheaper) an example the list of critical processes could be
• Recruitment
• Product development
• Sales to cash
• Innovation
• People development
• Customer satisfaction
• Content creation and publication

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?Any business focus on these 3 broad areas of? building the ?Culture, employee Capability and Execution bias, you cannot go too wrong in your people strategy in scaling your business

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