Tim Hebert
Management Services Committee Member
A&W Electric, Inc.
Charlotte, North Carolina
As a manager of a service center that’s an EASA member, one of the issues I have always struggled with is this feeling that I need to do it all, remember it all and manage it all. I am sure some of you have experienced the same feeling. At times it can feel overwhelming having to manage all the components needed to make an operation successful. One of the ways my business has been able to spread the responsibility for making certain we are doing all the right things is through the use of personalized scorecards. A scorecard is simply a list of 3-5 tasks each employee must focus on in order to ensure success in their role. It establishes clear expectations, simplifies what success looks like and helps get everybody on the same page. In sales, one of the metrics may be the number of appointments or new customer applications. In a shop environment, it may be the number of billable hours or number of warranties. In either case, it helps spread the responsibility to all, gets your team focused on the right objectives and ensures everybody shares the same vision.
I found once we began publishing expectations and tracking results, a significant percentage of our team became very focused on making certain they hit “their numbers.” We discovered through the process that team members want to be contributing members to a successful organization. A major benefit was that once everybody was focused on their specific results, our team operated better, our results were better and our stress was reduced. Creating clear expectations for all and a vision of what success looks like was a total win for our organization.