Haven’t had to correct an employee on proper protocols lately?
Then you should be very concerned.
In today’s modern agricultural industry we too often think of our employees as Henry Fordescue cogs in an assembly line.
Employees are handed SOPs and job descriptions that have been approved by management, FARM and our processors. They are trained and corrected until they master them. After this mastery, managers then often place the employee in the back of their mind. Only returning to them when problems arise, when the system requires extra training or when introducing an evolution of their job description.
But when does this benign neglect of high performing employees become dangerous?
This threshold is reached when protocol becomes the only standard. When protocols are unequivocally followed by employees. When “We’ve always done it this way” becomes the employee’s credo.
Managers should expect employees to drift, to deviate, and even alter protocols.
These alterations are not malicious. They are simple first order changes made by employees in the spirit of adaptation and improved efficiency. They are very much a sign of a healthy workplace.
When we hire individuals we force them into a new social context. Challenging their prior sense of self, forcing them into our “SOP” molds. A natural side effect of this is a loss of control; something that is necessary for employees to feel satisfied with their work and life. If this erosion of life satisfaction persists, this will result in employees leaving this new social environment, aka their job.
Healthy workplaces encourage employees to take back control by allowing them to trial different efficiency changes. They expect and even invite deviation of SOPs; which must occur within a safety net or “rails” involving and even requiring managerial oversight.
By providing an environment of encouraged change managers are able to provide a sort of “health” test for the operation. Because as James Clear stated;
“When people say they don’t want to change what they really mean is they don’t have an incentive to change.”
Using this metric, a lack of change or protocol drift by employees over time would suggest the opposite of what we think. Instead of thinking things are going well, managers should be concerned that employee’s autonomy is being suppressed. So much so that the operation could be at risk of being unable to retain premier talent long term.
Managers should look for, encourage and be relieved by protocol deviations. Rather than correcting the behavior outright, one should be asking deeper questions. Find out why the employee changed the protocol, altered the order, or modified the task. More often than not this “trend towards change” will have an operation headed in an improved direction; one that will empower and improve your operation.
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