At this point, I’m pretty sure almost everyone has heard about the employment issue with the Miami Dolphins. Evidently, the company culture allowed racism, sexism and bullying to occur, without repercussions. The company’s argument has been positioned around a culture that is common in its industry.
If you aren’t aware of the story concerning the Miami Dolphins, they are a football team in the National Football League. One player has quit the team due to bullying allegations, while another has been suspended for bullying.
I’d like you to take my first paragraph and instead of “Miami Dolphins,” insert your company. How would you feel if any of those actions occurred within your company? Do you believe if the same allegations came up from one of your employees that your company could handle the onslaught from media and the potential legal ramifications?
Many times we see in movies and TV shows examples of bosses that may scream at employees or talk down to them for several reasons. However, I believe it’s important that you build a culture within your business that empowers employees and helps them succeed. Screaming at them like a coach on the sidelines isn’t the best way to communicate, and I’m sure yelling isn’t the type of communication method you’d like to have in your culture. You should lead your employees by positive actions and hard work, not by intimidation.
Additionally, another way to ensure that your company has a solid foundation to build its culture on is to have employees with goals and specific responsibilities. For example, you wouldn’t expect your sales representative to workout five clients a day as a personal trainer, nor would you expect your personal trainer to sell clients all day on club memberships.
Yes, personal trainers do sell, but they sell personal training packages, not memberships. Your club should distinguish membership sales from personal training sales and they shouldn’t conflict. When you have employees covering other spots in the club, tasks may get jumbled, the team weakens emotionally, and if you get upset with them, you can easily play a role in crushing the spirit of your culture very quickly.
Going back to my NFL analogy — you wouldn’t have an offensive lineman play quarterback, or vice versa. If you did so, neither person would be able to execute properly. Employees in your organization are no different. Many of them have spent years developing skills that can enhance your company — you probably hired them for those skills.
It’s important as a business you identify the roles you need people for and hire for those positions. If you need two roles filled, hire two people. Don’t hire someone for one role and then place a multitude of additional tasks on the person. As a company, you should be attempting to hire talented individuals that can enhance your company at a certain position, not someone that can handle a bunch of positions relatively well.
This is crucial in developing a positive culture in company. Additionally, when people have certain job descriptions and goals tied to those descriptions they will react more positively. It’s when people are trying to do too much without an end goal that they become overwhelmed and your culture can suffer.
Communication is key in keeping these issues from arising. First, you can’t communicate with employees like NFL players in a locker room. You must treat them like people and rely on their experience to lead areas of your company. Additionally, lean on them to expand your company. When they say a position needs to be filled, begin to communicate with them on what that position may entail and why they believe it can be filled.
When you have all of your teammates working on the tasks they excel at, your culture will become more positive and your company will grow. This is not as easy as it may seem, or as obvious either. Companies struggle with these concepts every day, and some even operate like the Miami Dolphins. It’s important that you spend some time speaking with your leaders about the culture of your company. Do you have too many people working in areas they aren’t suited for? Do you rely on your employees to pick up the slack too much? It’s important that you value your employees for what they do, not for what you wish they could do.
Tyler Montgomery is the editor of Club Solutions Magazine. Contact him at tyler@clubsolutionsmagazine.com.
