Make Employees More Accountable

By Anthony Burruano

I’ve heard the term “accountability” probably only second to cash flow and profit over my 30 plus years of working with privately held and publicly traded companies. I’m often told, “I hired them for their experience and expertise; they know their jobs, but I just get what I get…not what I want.”

The fallacy is that when you leave it up to your employees to determine “what good is,” you simply get their “good” (potentially multiple little businesses ongoing with no risk…except to you as the owner), not YOUR GOOD. 

Assuming that your definition of “good” is valid (keeps you in business) and achievable (not impossible or benchmarked to constant 100 percent performance), whether in construction, manufacturing, distribution, or services, if you can’t clearly define YOUR GOOD in terms of critical processes to be performed, financial and operational standards linked to HOW YOU MAKE MONEY, have the ability to measure those results by critical process, and link the results to how the employee makes money, you simply can’t create ACCOUNTABILITY. 

In simpler terms, the employee must know what they are accountable for; must work under your definition of “good” via reports or simple observation); and communicate the results of their observation of good or bad to defined timelines.

In construction, the bible is the awarded estimate. When broken down into daily/weekly/job specific standards for project managers and field personnel, a measurable control is established. You evaluate your estimators based on results of bid to award (bid log), total dollars, margins, and field feedback. 

If there is a problem with the bid that gets past your pre-start meetings with the project managers, supervisors, and/or lead foreman, the accountable feedback is to correct future bids and for the field crew to seek ways of mitigating the problem.  If profits exceed expectations, understand why you are winning and how to repeat it and feed the information back to estimating so they can focus on more of that type of work.

There is no perfection in business, just a constant accountability to respond to problems to mitigate them and to maximize great jobs.  In reality, problems that go on even an extra day or week (more often longer) cost money, cash flow, and profits whether in the field or in estimating.  Accountability means I know what “your good” is, I recognize and accept that it is achievable, and I work to maximize that which is working and respond to correct or mitigate problems within an “urgent” timeline.

The pennies and dollars mount up.  If you focus on what the profit and cash flow should be ruthlessly (intense focus) at all key levels, profits will increase along with your cash flow forever.

Anthony Burruano, joint managing director of Burruano Group, specializes in helping businesses increase their profit, cash flow and sales. He is a nationally known business consultant, speaker and a contributing author to several trade publications. For more information, visit www.burruanogroup.com or call 866-709-3456.

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