Attitude Adjustment
Attitude Adjustment: A Simple Document Can Bring out the Best Behavior in All Your Employees, Every Day
Yes you can legislate good behavior. Quint Studer explains how to
create and use a Standards of Behavior contract that boosts morale,
customer satisfaction, and profitability.
Gulf Breeze, FL—A question for all managers: do your employees know the basics of good behavior? Sure, they know the obvious rules—don’t falsify documents, don’t surf inappropriate websites, don’t wear sweatpants to work. But what about the more subtle “rules” that aren’t covered in the employee handbook? Do your employees know not to chew gum? Gossip amongst themselves? Speak to customers in a bored or impatient tone? You may think these sound like “common sense” issues. But are they really?
Not necessarily, says Quint Studer, nationally acclaimed management educator and coach for leaders and author of Hardwiring Excellence: Purpose, Worthwhile Work, Making a Difference (Fire Starter Publishing, 2004, ISBN: 0-9749986-0-5, $28.00). He points out that common sense is a subjective concept, depending in part on an individual’s background. But it’s very important that every employee display behavior that’s consistent with company standards and aligned with desired outcomes.
“Obviously, you want employees to leave a positive impression on customers,” says Studer. “And it’s also important for morale to have everyone behaving in appropriate ways. For example, an employee who frequently snaps at coworkers or barges into offices without knocking first is not contributing to a happy, unified, productive team. Quite the opposite. And here’s the heart of the issue: if you don’t spell out which behaviors are acceptable and which are not, you can’t hold people accountable for them.”
Studer’s solution is simple and amazingly effective. He recommends that organizations develop a “Standards of Behavior” contract and have everyone, from CEO to receptionist, sign it. This document can address any and all aspects of behavior at work: from interaction with clients to phone etiquette to “good manners” (knocking on doors) to “positive attitude” markers (smiling or saying thank you).
Interested in creating a Standards of Behavior contract for your company? Studer offers the following tips:
• Seek input from all employees in creating the document. Studer often suggests that his hospital clients put together a “Service Team” to spearhead the initiative and create the first draft. You may wish to do the same. Just be sure that everyone has a chance to review the document and provide input before it’s finalized. Do not have Human Resources write it and impose it on everyone else. You want to create buy-in, and that requires companywide participation.
• Align desired behaviors with corporate goals and desired outcomes. Before you start writing, take a look at your organization’s long-term goals and areas that need improvement. Make sure the content of your Standards of Behavior supports and promotes these outcomes. This is especially relevant in health care settings, where staff performance is constantly measured and rated by customers (i.e., patients). If a hospital wants to improve its ratings in a certain area—say, patient perception of care—it will include carefully crafted “key words at key times” as a part of its Standards of Behavior. When everyone begins to use these words consistently, ratings will improve.
• Review other organizations’ Standards of Behavior. If you’re having trouble getting started, find copies of such documents used by other organizations. Even if you decide that some of the standards aren’t relevant to your company, it will give you a good “jumping off” point.
• Be crystal clear and very specific in your wording. Don’t write “Display a positive attitude.” Do write “Smile, make eye contact, and greet customers by name.” Don’t worry about insulting people’s intelligence. Sometimes people really, truly don’t know what is appropriate behavior and what isn’t. For instance, if you don’t want commonly used “slang” phrases used with customers, you need to identify them right up front. One Standards of Behavior document created by a Studer client contains the phone etiquette directive: Avoid phrases like “OK,” “Yeah,” “Hold on,” “Honey,” and “See ya.”
• Hold a ceremonial Standards of Behavior “roll out.” Once you have finalized your Standards of Behavior document, it’s time to implement it. Hold an employee forum or companywide meeting in which you introduce the standards and distribute pledges for everyone to sign. You might want to create an event around your CEO and leadership team signing the pledge. You may even hold activities designed to educate employees about some of the points. Make it fun. But do have everyone sign a pledge—it’s amazing how much more seriously people take rules when they’ve signed on the dotted line.
• Hold people accountable when they violate a standard. Make sure all employees know they’ll be held accountable for the behaviors outlined in the Standards of Behavior document. Then, just do it. How you hold them accountable is up to you. Sometimes a simple meeting in which you show an employee the signed pledge and point out her error is sufficient. Other times, you might need to write her up or take more drastic disciplinary measures. But one thing is clear: the Standards of Behavior pledge gives you something to hold people accountable to. It’s worth implementing for that reason alone.
• Create a designated “Standard of the Month.” Every month, highlight a specific standard. This will boost awareness of the standards in general and will get people thinking about how that specific one applies to their daily lives. Let’s say, for example, that you decide to focus on your policy for dealing with disgruntled customers. At the beginning of the month you might send out a “reminder” e-mail detailing the policy. Next, you might ask employees to write up real-life or hypothetical scenarios in which they must deal with angry or dissatisfied customers. Finally, you might hold a companywide forum in which you recruit people to “act out” both sides of a conflict: the disgruntled customer and the employee trying to soothe her. Not only is this fun and often hilarious, it can be a valuable learning tool, as it forces people to see both sides of an issue.
• Update the Standards of Behavior. The standards shouldn’t be carved in stone, preserved behind glass, and never touched again. As time goes by, you may see that one or two directives are not working and need to be changed. You may also discover new standards that need to be added as your company grows and evolves in new directions. Make changes as necessary. Your Standards of Behavior should be a “living document” that serves your company . . . not the other way around.
• Have new applicants sign it right up front. Before you even interview prospective new employees, have them read and sign your Standards of Behavior. You will be able to eliminate people from the race up front if they visibly balk at conforming to your corporate culture. But more important, when you do hire someone there will be no doubt in his mind what you expect of him. If he is going to have trouble meeting your standards, you will probably know during the initial “probationary” period.
Studer says just knowing that a Standards of Behavior document exists—and knowing that their signature is affixed to a pledge to uphold it—is enough to keep average employees on their toes. It creates an extra boost of awareness that really does affect day-to-day behavior. Best of all, it functions as a tidal pull on lower-performing employees.
“Your goal should always be to bring low and middle performers closer to the level of your high performers,” says Studer. “That’s what a Standards of Behavior document will do for your company. It forces people to do their best, to be their best. If low performers don’t move up, the division between them and the high performers becomes a chasm. And then it’s easier to deal with them.”
“When everyone is adhering to the right standards and working toward a common goal, morale improves,” he says. “Job performance improves. Customer satisfaction improves. Profitability improves. And to think, it all begins with a piece of paper! Start working your Standards of Behavior today. It will take you one giant leap closer to becoming a world-class organization.”
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About the Author:
Quint Studer, a former hospital president and 20-year health care veteran, is founder and CEO of Studer Group, headquartered in Gulf Breeze, FL. An executive coaching firm and national learning lab, Studer Group is devoted to teaching tools and processes that organizations use to achieve sustained focus on Service and Operational Excellence. Partner organizations see clear results in the arenas of higher employee retention, greater customer satisfaction, healthy financials and growing market share, and improvements in various other quality indicators.
A nationally recognized health care management thought leader, Studer was named one of the “Top 100 Most Powerful People” by Modern Healthcare. Studer has devoted his professional career to helping health care organizations become world-class leaders in Service and Operational Excellence. He has contributed to features in USA Today and Inc. magazine,and has authored in-depth feature articles on consumerism, service excellence, organizational alignment, and communicating quality to major health care trade journals.
Studer’s 20-year career in health care management includes positions as COO of Holy Cross Hospital in Chicago and president of the Baptist Hospital, Inc. in Pensacola, FL. As a result of Studer’s leadership, Baptist Hospital was awarded the prestigious Quality Cup by USA Today and the Rochester Institute of Technology. Studer led both hospitals to the top 99 percentile in employee and patient satisfaction as compared to hospitals nationwide in an independent health care survey.
Recently, Quint received the HFMA’s Helen Yerger/L. Vann Seawall Best Article Award for 2003-2004. This award—given for his article titled “The Value of Employee Retention,” published in the January 2004 issue of HFM—honors outstanding contributions to professional literature in the field of health care financial management.
Studer received B.A. and M.A. degrees in education from the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater. He has the honor of serving on the Board of Directors of the 32,000-member Healthcare Financial Management Association, a national professional organization of CFOs and finance executives in health care.
Studer is also the author of the newly-released 101 Answers to Questions Leaders Ask (Fire Starter Publishing, 2005, ISBN: 0-9749986-2-1, $16.00).
About the Book:
Hardwiring Excellence: Purpose, Worthwhile Work, Making a Difference (Fire Starter Publishing, 2004, ISBN: 0-9749986-0-5, $28.00) is available at bookstores nationwide, major online booksellers, or directly from the publisher by calling (866) 354-3473. Copies also can be purchased online through the Studer Group website at www.studergroup.com.Use the Related Tools:
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