“I can’t grow my company if she won’t do her job.”

That’s what my client Suzanne said yesterday when I was sitting in her office. She went on to tell me story after story about how her office manager Liz just wasn’t getting it done. Suzanne felt that Liz wasn’t taking enough initiative, and she wondered if Liz was committed to the company.

It was all driving her crazy. 

I can’t tell you how many times I hear this when I’m meeting with clients. In fact, I’ve already heard it three times this week from three separate business owners in three different industries.

These business owners feel the weight of this dilemma every day. They wonder if they have the right person for the job and, most of the time, they’re not really sure how their employees are spending their days. Feeling this way is enough to frustrate even the most enthusiastic entrepreneur.

Fortunately there is a simple solution. Every person in your company (including YOU) needs a job description.

Unless everyone knows who’s doing what, it’s impossible to identify the holes and find the problems. And it’s the holes that often cause the most frustration.

Here’s an example: Liz handles customer invoices as part of her job. To her, this means getting them out on time. Suzanne, on the other hand, thinks that it also means making collection calls and automating the process so it takes less time.

When Suzanne asks Liz if she’s taken care of the invoices, she says yes. A few days later Suzanne sees a report showing unpaid invoices that are 60 – 90 days old and thinks that Liz isn’t doing her job. Liz doesn’t understand why Suzanne is frustrated with her. Getting the picture?

Job descriptions remove assumption.  Job descriptions make it easier for everyone to succeed.  Job descriptions open communication.  Job descriptions identify gaps.

Ready to get started? Here’s what I suggest:

1.  Go to the conference room or a room with wall space. Tape flip chart paper to the wall or buy a pad of flip chart-sized Post-it Notes (see this Things I Can’t Live Without) and use those. Put one page on the wall for each position in your company, writing the job title at the top.
2. Write the job descriptions in detail. Describe the roles, not individuals (i.e., Office Manager Responsibilities vs. Suzie’s job). Be as specific as you can and include details when necessary.   For example, instead of “Payroll,” you might write “Payroll including monthly reconciliation, making sure our statements are correct and that we’re not paying the payroll company too much.” Be specific!
3. After either you (or your employee) has taken the first stab at the role description, meet in private and identify the holes. Many times the holes represent something that the employee didn’t perceive as part of his or her responsibility or something they don’t know how to do.This is where you can begin to identify training opportunities and mentoring, and begin to get clear about whether this person is a good fit for the position.
4. Make it official. Take the time to put the job description in writing. Going forward, it will be a great tool to use when you check in on progress during the workweek and at annual performance reviews.

Here’s the deal. You may indeed have the wrong person in the right position and need to fire someone. But until you have clearly defined jobs and the descriptions that go with them, you can’t tell the difference between an under-performing employee and someone who just doesn’t know what your expectations are.

Before you fire someone – and absolutely before you hire someone else and potentially recreate the same problem – take the time to develop job descriptions and clarify what everyone’s expectations are.

The other day I decided to finally start working on my dining room and get some quotes from painters. You would think that hiring a painter would be easy, especially in “this economy” when everyone is looking for work. Much to my surprise, I had to work at it.

After getting referrals from three friends, I started calling. One company called back right away, another called within a couple of days, and one never called back at all. When the two companies who were still in the game came to look at the job, I was surprised by their proposal process.

One painter didn’t have the details I needed about things like who would supply the paint, how many days it would take to do the job, and whether his workers would help to move the furniture, etc. I had to play phone tag with him for a while to get my questions answered. The other painter had the details I was looking for, but I had to call the company twice to get them.

Since interacting with prospects and clients is so important for any business and happens (hopefully) all the time, I wondered why these small companies didn’t have a system in place to make this process as efficient as possible. If you think about it, my goal was to hire a painter and give that painter my m-o-n-e-y. So why the disconnect? And what should you do to make sure that your business doesn’t have one?

Be a detective.

Get your staff together and have them show you their “tracks.”  Find out exactly what happens when…

…someone requests a proposal. Do you have a several proposal templates ready to go for various jobs, or do you create them from scratch every time? Within how many days/hours after you scope out the job do you send the proposal? When and how do you follow up?

…someone wants more information. Do you write down their name and contact information?What happens if they don’t hire you right away? How do you track them? Do they ever hear from you again?

…someone refers a new customer. Do you thank them?How do you thank them? Who is the thank you from, and how quickly does it get sent?

…someone becomes a new customer. Do you contact them after the work is finished to find out how it went? Do you ask them to refer you to their friends? How do you keep in touch with them once the job is over?

…someone has feedback. Who responds? How do you handle feedback that’s negative? How do you share it when it’s positive? If you hear the same complaint over and over, do you do something about it?

Establish a system that everyone can follow.

I bet you’ll be really surprised by what you find once you start asking these questions. If you’re like most of the businesses I work with, you probably don’t have any kind of formal system that people have been trained to follow. In fact, each person will probably have their own system – notes on pieces of paper, a notebook, a spreadsheet – you name it.

The problem there is that your business is relying on someone’s memory, or an idiosyncratic system that no one else knows how to run. If the person who devised the system is not there, or they forget to do something, things and opportunities could fall through the cracks.

So do yourself a big favor. Before you spend a bunch of money trying to get more people to your door with Google, search engine optimization, and email campaigns, ask yourself this question:  When your phone starts ringing, are you ready?

Stop asking customers to step over obstacles that get in the way of them hiring you. Make an investment in an efficient, reliable system that makes doing business with you as easy as knocking over a can of paint.