I think I’m going to make today’s inspiration into a button and wear it at work. Because it has inspired me in two different thoughts but both occurred this weekend at our marina.
The first example is in how people leave jobs. Unfortunately in today’s society the concept of “two week’s notice” is nearly non-existent. I specialize in the high school / college crowd, so I cannot speak to middle managers at Fortune 500’s. I simply have 28 years of experience supervising the “first job” crowd.
In the recent 8 years, parents have overwhelming influenced decisions (in a very bad way) over the first job experience. The parents, with 15-20 years of work experience under their belt and are prepared to make the “all about me” decisions concerning their free spirit thinking, have put this into the head of their darling 15 year old. The 15 year old that has no job skills and no work experience AND expects $15 an hour. (I’m not kidding).
So where does that leave a small business?
With an overpaid and under skilled work force, that thinks they can take time off for their “dog’s birthday party” – (Seriously, I’m not kidding).
Now. Let’s get back to my original observation. I had an employee that put in a “two week’s notice” which… silly me… I believed. So I scheduled the person. When I noticed the schedule had not been picked up, I contacted the person, who replied texted (15 hours later) that “I’m working at my new job” – ahhhhhh, isn’t that charming. Although this person is #1 in the class, had been responsible, I cannot wait for a request for a job reference. Because it will come… they always do. And you know what. While employers are so “gagged” as to what they can/can’t say… on an employment referral you sure can say… “still waiting for them to show up for their shift on 6/17 and 6/18.” Do you think that a potential employer might understand what that means?
When I was covering the shifts for “employee actions not matching words”, another employee said… “Oh she GTFON’d it” I just looked at him, I knew what the F meant… and I figured out the rest in about 20 seconds. But here’s the sad part. There’s a hashtag/acronym for it!!! So corporate America… just you wait. Five years from now when you hear it on the news that no one puts in notice they just GTFON you are prepared and heard it here first. Again, 28 years of experience on the front line of supervising the first job has some perks, I know what the trends are long before I hear them on the news. I had mommies calling in for kids at least 7 years before I heard the news story about it happening to HR at General Mills. It just made me laugh. So be prepared… GTFON is coming!
My second observation is that if you’re not on a contract quit complaining to me. We rent boats. Because boats are seen as “fun” the rules/regulations/contracts are sometimes viewed as “optional” by our guests. When the boat leaves we inspect the condition, when the boat returns we inspect the condition. If something breaks we charge for it.
Now here’s the ironic part. The people who are most upset are NEVER the contract holder. It’s always the “friend”. This person will scream at me, threaten me, and call me nasty words. My remedy now is to simply look them and say “I only work with the contract holder”. Why??? Because there is absolutely nothing I can say to someone that is hostile and intoxicated that has not read and initialed the 13 point contract (twice), watched a video, and signed their name to the visual check-out/check-in process.
Nothing.
Again, 28 years of experience of learning, tweaking policies, and creating customer service “confrontation management” skills has allows me to now say, that this creepy angry troll “friend” needs to simply GTFON.
Thank you Gen Z.
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Action Step
1- Develop an exit plan with your employees when they start. Instill the importance of leaving on good terms with the appropriate amount of notice.
2- Understand as an employer and as a business owner, you may think you have no power, but ultimately you do. Look at where you get the most complaints and change something… most likely it’s before the transaction even occurs. About 3 weeks ago we added a video explaining the most common damage issue on our boats, and it’s reduced the damage/confrontation by 85% (so far…)
3- Install my free app! (SmallBusinessClubApp.com)
Listen to Episode #108 of the Two Minute Commute audio blog Podcast
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A- Install our Free App (SmallBusinessClubApp.com –Apple or Android )
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