OUR TEAM OF WORKERS....ROCK!!
Are you a business owner? Do you have employees? Then no doubt you understand how wonderful it is to have fabulous people who work with you. We currently have the best team of guys and I pray they never leave us. But it wasn’t always like this. There was a time when it wasn’t like this…AT ALL.
In fact, the reason I quit teaching was because
there was a time when we had employees dropping like flies! Towards the end of the school year 2014, we
had an amazing guy driving for us. We
LOVED him. He was wonderful, smart, had
a great personality and was such a hard worker.
But he was blessed with a great opportunity to start up his own business
with his dad…in Alabama. I never knew I
could feel so happy for someone and so sick to my stomach at the same
time. Just a couple of months later our
other employee (who had been the previous owner of the company but wasn’t ready
to quit working and retire…) got in a horrible car accident!! Not only did his injuries keep him from
working for a while, but for good. So,
in a matter of two months we went from two great team members to 0 team
members. It was just my husband…and then
me.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure
out this was a BIT of a stressful time for our family. If you’ve ever ran your own business you
might be able to appreciate this horrible situation. My poor husband was working day and night,
weekends, holidays – basically, all the time to try to keep up with the calls
that were coming in. We were able to
enlist the work of a contractor here and there, but ultimately my husband was
the only guy in the field doing all the work.
He would leave early in the morning and come home late at night. I was praying every hour of the day that God
would send us an employee!! I didn’t care who.
ANYONE would work just so my husband could get some rest and my kids
could re-introduce themselves to their father.
Turns out my prayer for “anyone” wasn’t such an
intelligent prayer. Even though it doesn’t
take genius level of intelligence to run a pump truck, it does take skills and
special licensing to be able to drive a commercial vehicle. For those of you who might not know it, there
are also tests our drivers have to pass from the Nebraska Department of Environmental
Quality (NDEQ) to haul liquid waste. I
know many people see what we do as being dummy work, but in all actuality, it’s
not. Therefore, not just “anyone” can
work for us – they have to be able to pass certain tests and run our
equipment. We discovered this as we
searched for new employees. The other
aspect of hiring “anyone” is work ethic.
I assumed that people seeking employment would to show up to work every
day. That’s not necessarily the case. Therefore, praying for “anyone” to work for
us actually made my husband’s life harder, not easier.
Despite our hiccups along the way, I kept praying
and eventually God blessed us with two awesome guys. Though I complain about the road it took us
to find our guys now, I don’t think I would appreciate them as much as I do had
we not struggled to find them as much as we did. I am so thankful for them every day, but I
think my appreciation is higher because I know what it is like to not have hard
working, skillful people on our team.
Let me brag on our guys a bit, just so you know how lucky we are...
If you’re a business owner, I am sure these
comments resonate with you. Do you have
a great guy or team of people working for you?
Have you shown them your appreciation?
I know we do what we can to keep our guys happy. Many people say to put your customers first,
but honestly, I think you have to put your employees first. By doing so, you essentially ARE putting your
customers first. If your employees are
happy, they will work to make your customers happy. Here’s three cheers for awesome
workers!! They are what makes the world
function efficiently!!
Happy with your employee? Hug ‘em.
Compliment ‘em. Give them a
bonus. Take them to lunch. Show them how much you appreciate their
work.
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