Common Mistakes That Could Mean That You Don't Get The Most Out Of Your Employees And Work Teams

Is there potential for improvement in your business? Are your managers making some of these common mistakes in the way they deal with your employees?

Just take our test by reading through and asking yourself whether you are making these mistakes. Please be honest with yourself and it may help to grade your answer - Never, Sometimes, Always.

The issues are shown below and then repeated with comments.

1 - Relying too much on a small number of key employees.

2 - Not explaining to your team, what you want your business to achieve.

3 - Failing to clarify individual goals and responsibilities.

4 - Not involving employees enough.

5 - Thinking that more pay solves all employee problems.

6 - Recruiting "experts" who won't do things your way.

7 - Not holding people accountable.

8 - Tolerating under-performance or a bad attitude.

9 - Failing to train employees and plan for succession.


1 - Relying too much on a small number of key employees.

It's great to have a few key members of your team who you can rely on to get things done and to get things done right.

But do you rely on them too much? What happens when they are away on holiday? What would happen if they went to work for somebody else?

Too much knowledge that is usually just taken for granted, can be lost if key employees are no longer around.

The answer where possible is to make sure that work processes are systemised and your more junior employees are trained to use the systems.

2 - Not explaining to your team, what you want your business to achieve.

Too many people think that all parts of your strategy have to be kept secret. The problem is that people can't implement a strategy if they don't know what the business is trying to achieve.

Your team members can't make the right decisions, even if those decisions are just about how to focus their time on the priority activities, if they don't share in your vision for your business.

3 - Failing to clarify individual goals and responsibilities.

Moving from your vision and your key business goals to individual responsibilities and goals for a particular position may seem obvious to you.

But it may not be to your employees.

You are in a unique position. You see the big picture while at the same time you can see how all the individual pieces fit together.

You need to make sure that each of your positions has an up-to-date performance contract (I deliberately avoided the term job description because it smacks of bureaucracy) that tells the person what they must do and achieve to earn the right to keep their place in your business.

4 - Not involving employees enough.

People thrive on involvement in decisions and improvement projects.

It's very flattering to be asked "We're thinking of doing ..... What do you think?"

You are telling your employee that their opinion matters to you.

But it's not just good for the employee. It makes sense for you too.

The employee will have a different perspective and may be the expert in that particular area. Once they understand what it is that you want to achieve, you could get some great ideas for improvement that you wouldn't have thought of.

It then makes even more sense if you give the employee the responsibility (where practical) for turning the idea into a successful action.

5 - Thinking that more pay solves all employee problems.

OK money matters. No employee is going to reject a pay rise for doing the same job under the same terms.

But it's not necessarily the big motivator to get more effort, more commitment, more achievement.

In fact research shows that while poor pay is often a demotivator and unfair pay policies create deep resentment in the business, some people are happy with their salary.

These people want more involvement, more challenge, more of a sense of achievement, more acknowledgement that they do a good job.

Are your employees cash rich but satisfaction poor? Can you do more to make sure they get more out of their jobs?

Even worse is if your employees are badly rewarded in both financial and satisfaction terms. Do you really expect to keep these people if something better comes along?

It may not be a problem for some but to lose good employees due to poor management policies and practices is a waste of their potential and a blank cheque for the costs of recruitment, temporary work and low productivity.

6 - Recruiting "experts" who won't do things your way.

It's an easy trap to fall in to. You have a problem and you want to get it fixed.

So you hire an expert but they don't want to follow your systems. They don't share your values. They don't have a commitment to the same level of customer service that you do.

Sometimes it's OK to have a maverick (it's an indication that your systems may not be the best way) but you have to make sure that they really are producing the goods by having clear monitoring systems in place.

Too often experts are not so expert when it gets down to doing the job after a very impressive interview.

7 - Not holding people accountable.

If you have set goals for your team, they must be responsible for reporting against those goals, delivering performance that at least meets your standards and for explaining why their performance is not better.

8 - Tolerating under-performance or a bad attitude.

A high performance business knows which employees are delivering and which are failing.

Those not performing to your expectations need to be told quickly that their performance is not good enough.

They need to understand what it is that you expect and have the opportunity for any training or skills development. They also need the opportunity for counselling and coaching and for you to support their performance by removing any tangible or perceived obstacles.

But if an employee continues to have a bad attitude that impacts on other staff or customers or the employee fails to bring their performance up to standard over a reasonable time, you have to take action.

The performance contract is breached and they must lose their position, if not their employment with your company. Take legal advice because it's a complicated area but keeping them in their current role will undermine everything you try to do with your other employees.

9 - Failing to train employees and plan for succession.

More details to appear on here soon. Please add to your favourites and come back.

In the meantime please try these other tests of common mistakes people make - business owners, finance, marketing and sales.

Take a look at my Business Coaching Blog for my latest advice, ideas and recommendations.

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