Situation: A company has a good team to support its projects. They work together well and demonstrate good work habits. However, communication between team members, and between certain team members and management is challenging, particularly when performance issues are involved. How do you improve communications and quality?

Advice from the CEOs:

• What has been tried?
  • Once a month, The CEO plans an outside event for the team, for example a long dinner in a nice location.
  • During the latest event, the team members started opening up to one-another and to the CEO. They were much more open than they are at work.
• Are the concerns about communication within teams, between teams, or between teams and management?
  • Several team members are relatively new. A few others are long-term and often fail to perform to standards. This group frequently has issues and it takes their foreman’s time to address these. This frustrates the foreman.
• How should the CEO deal with this situation?
  • The foreman is a long-term employee who reports directly to the CEO. It is the responsibility of the CEO to develop a solution that serves the interests of the company.
  • For example: the company lives and breathes on customer satisfaction. Any worker with a pattern of substandard work negatively impacts both the image and value of the company.
  • Further, distracting the foreman from his primary responsibilities impacts his ability to complete other work demands.
• Try the following solution:
  • Explain the problem and the negative impact that this has on the company.
  • Establish a policy that workers are responsible for assuring that work meets standards before completing a job.
  • Establish a list of specific standards for work and checklists to assure that the work is complete and meets standards.
  • Establish and publish a policy that if a Foreman or supervisor finds work performed below standard this will result in a warning to the worker. Continued performance of substandard work becomes grounds for termination. Misrepresentation of work quality is grounds for immediate termination.
  • Ask key managers, supervisors and foremen for input on the policy.
  • Once the policy is finalized, post it, provide all employees with a copy of the policy, and make sure that it is openly communicated to them both verbally and in writing.
• If any worker currently presenting problems persists in this behavior, the company will have established a policy and procedure for disciplinary action and, if necessary, termination.

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