HOW
YOUR WORK ENVIRONMENT CAN PROVIDE FOR TEAMWORK
Whether
your towing business has been around for years or is still in the expansion
phase, it is never too late to create a positive working environment
This traditional environment is a set of beliefs, written (and,
sometimes even more importantly, unwritten) rules and values through which a
business functions. It is similar
to a sports team having its definitive colors and a mascot; your small
business has a way of life that gives that positive image, and methods of
doing business that determine who you are and how others perceive you.
Successfully applied, when your trucks are seen on the street, or at
the scene of an accident, people will recognize them as being a part of a
network of positive thinking professionals.
A positive working environment; can you feel it, see it, or hear it?
When you walk around the work-place, are there personal photos or mementos in
your employees' tool boxes or on the dash of their tow truck?
Do your employees celebrate each other's birthdays with a small party
or gathering? At lunchtime, do
your drivers and dispatchers scatter, or do they come together and share the
time as a group? The sense of
belonging to a group, a shared vision, and the belief in positive intentions
are also keys that enable you to create and sustain the tradition and culture
of your workplace.
Can you feel it? Are you
encouraging you employees to get to know each other better on a personal
level, or at least providing an environment that allows for more interaction?
These encouragements are essential to creating a sense of belonging?
When the working environment encourages this within a small towing
business, the benefits are twofold. Not
only do your employees truly care about each other's lives and goals, but they
also care about your company's goals as well.
By working together to reach the company goals, they better each
other's lives, and the values of the company.
Can you see it? Hiring
those people who share the company's vision (or converting new employees) is
elemental to small-business successes. Your
vision should be more than a set of goals for specific sales target or a
certain number of tows; it should be something that can be dreamed about as
well as achieved. Definite profit
and volume goals may well be a part of the dream, but the dream should embody
all the senses - what one will feel like upon attainment of the goals, the
people who will celebrate the success, the reflection that will be portrayed
to the community and the betterment it will bring to each employee's life. As this culture permeates, those who must believe and work
towards the shared vision will be promoted and placed in influential or
decision-making positions. As
this occurs, the culture becomes an indicator of past performance and a
predictor of behavior the business will reward in the future. Belief in the
shared vision engenders the sense of belonging and creates the trust and
excited atmosphere that begets a belief in positive intention.
Can you hear it? Believing in positive intention implies a positive outlook for your small business. At the foundation of a positive outlook is a belief that the company's vision and goals can and will be reached when people work determinedly. For those employees who may have worked for larger corporations, they may have experienced this belief in positive intention. Others may have often felt like the company was just waiting in the wings to punish them for making a mistake. When a belief in positive intention exists, employees are encouraged to seek creative solutions and go out on a limb to reach a goal. You can literally hear the small successes being celebrated along the way. And even if a goal was not met, at least there was a belief that the employee had done his/her best. It was also occasionally discovered that the actual outcome, although it may have looked slightly different from the original goal, was even more of a success for the towing company.