THEY DON’T KNOW HOW TO DO IT

The most common reason most people at work do not do what they suppose to do because they don’t know how to do it.

For example, a typical manager knows that they suppose to motivate their office staff to do their job better but they themselves don’t know how to do it (how to motivate them). Instead, the manager resorts to scream and threaten their staff.

Just because you tell your staff to do, it is not the same as teaching them to do it. When you tell them, you order them to do it whereas when you teach them you show them how to do it.

Managers make too many assumptions about what people know without checking their assumptions. They promote the best accountant to accounting supervisor without providing any training in how to supervise people. Managing people is difficult if you don’t know how to go about managing them.

There are three main reasons why employees or office staff don’t know how to do what they are supposed to do because:

a) Managers assume the employees know how to do it.
b) Managers really believe they are teaching when in fact they are only telling.
c) Managers decide not to waste the time needed for teaching.

Normally managers trying to minimize training time in order to get the employees to produce output sooner without realizing that when people do not know what they are suppose to do, while receiving full monthly payment give poor service or produce non saleable and/or low quality product or output, or they damage equipment and costumer relationships. All these contribute to higher cost the management.

Therefore, to avoid these unnecessary problems, the management or manager should provide solution to prevent or minimize the said problem.

Below are some suggestion to help the manager or management prevents employees of not knowing how to do what they suppose to do.

a) Carefully select a person to train the new employees. The trainer must be fully knowledgeable and know how to teach people.
b) Device a training manual for the trainer to help guide and standardized the training manual for newly recruited employees.
c) Provide details reference manuals for employees. List the kinds of problems, along with the appropriate solutions, to help them solve problem when doing their job.
d) In all jobs where failure is rampant, give employees practice in simulation of the actual work so they make their mistake where the cost of failure to the management and employee is minimal.
e) Create a test for all new employees on a job so they can fine-tune their knowledge and know whether learning has actually occurred. The test can be both written and practical. If the employees do not pass the test, make the necessary arrangement to send them for more training.


Ref : Why Employees Don’t Do What They’re Supposed To Do – Ferdinand F. Fournies

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