Is Your Commercial Cleaning Team Feeling Micromanaged | The Magnetic Operator Ep.5

Welcome everyone to another amazing episode of the Magnetic Operator. Today is going to be quite the dude.

Well, I just got a text message and one of my employees missed another task. I swear, if this happens again, I am gonna do nothing because I can't do anything about it. Or can I?

Does this situation sound familiar? Immediately thought of it. Never mind. We won't go there. But this situation is common.

It's common.

That was the level of our acting ability.

That was acting. So end scene, cut.

So this situation is all too familiar with the many building service contractors and facility managers that we work with. So let's dive into these particular challenges. This is going to revolve around communication in today's episodes and the typical challenges that we experience when communication fails, things slip through the cracks. It is a constant. And let's dive into some of these challenges. Communication barriers, not communicating. Missed football passes. Didn't catch. Dropped. Passed the pass.

Yes. We had one recently, actually. One of our customers was hoping to have something completed by our team and we dropped the ball on it. We let it slip through the cracks. A few months pass and then the renewal comes up and they say, well, you didn't do what you said you were going to do. And that happens, right? No matter where or what type of business you are, that happens. And the biggest one, the most important one, I feel like when it comes to operation from a business or an organization is making sure that clients and stakeholders are happy. But sometimes you drop the ball, sometimes you miss the mark, sometimes you don't have the process to get things going. The challenge is not satisfied clients and stakeholders, people who are not happy with your service or product that you're providing.

Often that comes at the heart of communication. I'm a firm believer you really can't over communicate. Right. It doesn't mean you're going to be perfect at it. But that is an opportunity, right? An opportunity to really dive into the operational efficiency of your business and of your organization is the benefits of communicating like that scenario. The benefits of communicating and ensuring that things are clearly we talked about in our last episode, right? Clarity is king. The ability to set clear expectations. A huge piece of that. Where we're going to dive into today's episode is is you realizing that the opportunity is being able to take communication to the next level because you are taking the time and energy to handle and find the communication gaps that cause these discrepancies in your operations. So with that amongst the common thing that building service contractors and facility managers face when it comes to communication, what's kind of the one thing we've noticed, Sam.

Well, they need to communicate what needs to be done.

Right.

If things are getting done, then that client, that stakeholder, is actually happy.

Right.

And so that is a common challenge, but also an opportunity. If you improve the operation of getting tasks to the people that are doing the job day in and day out and clearly define what it means to do it well, communicating that, then you have a much better chance to provide a high quality service that creates trust and happiness in your clients and your stakeholders. I think that's it.

Right.

If you do that, you're in a better place than a lot of other businesses and organizations out there.

Yeah. So that leads us into beyond Mach 1.

Taking facility operations supersonic. You can't forget that.

Taking facility operations supersonic. So today's question is actually coming from Alex, and she asked this question. She said, there is a communication barrier between myself and a frontline employee, specifically.

Alex, you're not alone.

It just happened with Sam here.

It did just happen with me.

It does happen.

It does happen. Everybody, anyone who's in management leadership, it happens. You need to have good communication with your frontline employees. And there's a barrier sometimes. Yeah, there's a lot of reasons why we're going to talk about some of those.

Alex, you said I tell them what should be done during the day, and more times than not, tasks are still missed. And then your question was, do you have any tips for communicating to the frontline employees without going into micromanagement territory? Yes. We're going to focus the podcast episode today on this communication and that communicating with them, there's a way to go about doing it. And so hopefully, you know, pull out your pen and paper, take notes. But this particular relationship, again, the three core relationships that we often talk about, this episode we're going to dive into, specifically the manager and supervisor to employee relationship. I think it is applicable to all three core relationships. But some of the tips and tricks, just because Alex, you asked this particular question, not wanting it to feel like micromanagement. So going into the same acronym, for those of you who are tuning in and aren't aware of Mach 1 is okay, notable and elite, O, N E. Right. So, Sam, what is the okay, I kind of just hinted at it, but what is the okay level of dealing with this question?

Before I answer your question, I'm going to answer your question with another question. What is macro management? Do you know? It's just not micromanaging at all.

Right. Macro is huge.

You're not involved at all. So there's a middle ground. That's number one. I just want to put that out there. Okay. And that's where we want to be. We want to be in the middle. We don't want to be micromanaging, but we don't want to just leave it to chance. Right?

Yeah.

And so it's important to note that there's two sides to that coin. But being right in the middle, balanced is important. But an okay operator is someone who knows what tasks need to be done and they want their employees to do those things. You're checking to ensure that they're done, but you find yourself frequently checking in on those things, making sure that they're getting done. But the level of communication on what needs to be done is very minimal.

Right.

Again, that's kind of the macro level or you've given it to them and despite talking to your employees, communicating that, hey, here's what you got to do, they don't get it done. There's not a follow up process. You're constantly chasing those folks down to just make sure that it's getting done. And that's when we get to the micro. And that's why I wanted to kind of paint that picture, is because you can either just let it go and hope it's not a strategy, by the way, you can hope that it gets done, or you can give them the task and literally be sitting behind them, breathing on their neck, saying, hey, are you done? Are you done? Are you done? Are you done? Nobody wants that. That's an okay operator. Right? That is micromanagement. Literally, you can feel their breath on your neck. Right.

Imagine just literally following a cleaner around being like, no.

And you know what, I bet there's some that do it.

That might be a little extreme, but it does happen.

Right. So that's an okay operator. Someone who literally says, hey, here's the task, but I'm going to watch every single thing you do. And Alex, you may be at that point where you're like, man, I feel like every single time I give them a task I have to literally go to the location, make sure they did it. There's better ways to do that to check in with without them feeling like you're literally watching them 24 7.

It also comes from if you haven't set clear expectations on how check ins work. In our last episode we talked about this idea of clarity and expectations. I think it comes to the level of communication as well. So if you aren't communicating what you are going to be communicating what that process is going to look like, then it can feel like micromanagement to an employee because you haven't set a communication standard.

Yeah.

Right. And I would say that that would take us to our next notable category. You've established appropriate communication channels. Right. You've at least communicated that, but you're still struggling to find answers that you're looking for from those communication channels. Things still slip through the cracks amongst those communication channels. And really, even when you've implemented certain communication channels, it is still in a state of chaos. The flow isn't there.

Cohesiveness is the term I think of. You have communication channels, but you also have tools, softwares, whatever you're utilizing, you have the tools and you have communication. And when they're separate, right, you're chatting on WhatsApp, you're sending an email, you're using a spreadsheet, some of its paper forms. That is good because you're actually capturing some of that communication, but it's not cohesive. It's literally like all over the place. Think of like one of those maps where you have one central thing and it's someone trying to be a detective and you have all these pinpoints coming to that one central spot. But all that communication is on the outside. What you want to do is bring that in so you can actually find what you're looking for.

Right.

And that's answers to, is it done? Is it done well, did we deliver it with quality? And can we move on? Can we move on to the next priority? And so centralizing that, being cohesive, that's huge. And a notable person has the systems in the channels, but it's all over the place.

Yeah, it's all siloed.

So I think that's what makes the elite mo elite is when they've made it cohesive.

So kind of going into that, the elite MO from the foundations of your culture, Alex, you talked about without going into micromanagement. So your first part of your question is communicating to the front lines, which means your desire is there to establish a better process. But this exists at a cultural level, because at the heart of everything we do as an organization comes down to communication. Right. And so if you have clear and proactive communication that's integrated, its processes, your strategic initiatives, right. Becoming everyone's aware, everyone has a clear understanding of what should be doing well. When you take a proactive strategy, which includes regular updates, communication is never a one and done thing. I think that's a balance of people might get into like. Well, if I keep hounding on someone, then it feels like micromanaging. There's a way to go about communicating that comes off from leadership, from management, from supervisors that says, hey, these are the goals, here's the changes, here's why we are doing these changes and here how it's going to keep us all aligned. When you establish it, here's the alignment that the team will gain. And when everyone gets involved in the process, it starts making the feedback loops, which you talked back a few episodes on, the feedback loops start flowing better, right? It allows you to address items quickly and keep communication flowing. We just talked about like the notable category would be like, hey, this isn't flowing very well. Things are siloed in their own departments or tools. An elite operator, magnetic operator is going to create strategies that ensure communication flows smoothly. Certain processes, and then a key piece of that is one when all of that is operating smoothly is recognizing and rewarding those that communicate, right? It's really hard to say, hey, we're going to establish this process, but never recognize when it's going well. When we give recognition on, hey, this level of operation is producing these results and this team is excelling over here. If we don't share those informations, it doesn't give anyone a roadmap of what they should be working towards. Some teams are naturally just better than others. You have human beings that just work well over here together better than human beings over at this facility. Right? That's natural. And so being able to highlight and even offer incentives, some people that we've worked with over the years are pretty hesitant to give incentives. But I think incentives work when you're trying to highlight behavior that you want replicated. You want other people to go about doing better, good in that manner, communicating in that manner. An elite operator recognizes that they need to duplicate the systems of what is going well and get the buy in and the employee morale surrounded around this level of communication. Again, going back to your question, Alex, that is how you keep it from feeling like micromanagement.

It's easier said than done, Alex. Both Kaden and I, we've been in leadership roles. Oftentimes people come to me as I'm working with them at OTUVI and they're considering our solution. And they say, sam, how in the world am I supposed to implement this, make this change? And it starts by doing these little things, right? Habits that are changed over time, small tweaks to your process, to your communication, you do that and it compounds over time. We've talked about in other episodes that compound effect and your desire to change and recognizing that, hey, I'm part of this process and I have to buy in, I have to do this. And if I focus on this and make it a priority, then other people will start seeing it as a priority. What message am I sharing? Am I giving the right vision? Am I delivering it in a way that's clear and understandable so that they can buy into? And again, that's easier said than done. So that's why Kaden and I have created this framework that we wanted to develop for you where there are five R's that help you get to that closer moment of being an elite MO.

Yeah, so this is the 5R ERs.

We're still working on the name, the 5R's this framework.

So we're going to go through these pretty quick, but they come in order. So write these down, Alex and everyone else watching, obviously. But first piece is being reliable. And we'll get into that. Then it's respectful, then it's review, then it's revise and then reward, kind of what we just talked about. Right. And so each of these pieces, we're going to start with being reliable. In fact, this is O2V's number one core value. It's our first core value as an organization is to be reliable. But when it comes to communication, reliable communication is meaning that your communication is consistent. If I am a leader or a manager and I'm constantly changing what I'm saying or how I'm saying it in a way that causes confusion, causes the chaos, right? That's exactly the opposite of being reliable. So step one is first becoming aware. That is the first step of any change, any system, any improvement is becoming aware. And you have to make sure that what you're communicating is reliable and dependable information. So going to number two, respectful.

Before we go to respectful, I want to say one more thing about being reliable. You, as a manager, you need to be reliable in your communication. But by you setting that example and then sharing that proactive approach in reliability and communication, and then sharing that desire for your team to do the same and giving them the tools to do it, that is a huge piece. You want them to be reliable. You want to be able to trust them to go do the job.

So you lead the way.

So you lead the way and then help them do as you've done. Right? And that's what leaders are supposed to do. Set the example, lead, guide and allow people to do what they need to do and then share and communicate what is happening. Number two, Being respectful. Number or the second R number. R number. R number two, actively listening to your team, right. You've given them the tool, right? What I just mentioned, being reliable. You've given them a way to communicate to you reliably. Now you have to listen, right? You have to take what they're giving you. Show empathy to the fact that, yeah, your job sometimes is a crap job, pun intended, right? Like it's not fun, it's not easy, and a lot of people don't want to do it these days. So if they're doing it, you have to show that empathy. And most likely you've been there, right? If you're in the role Alex and everyone listening, you've probably been there, right? So show that to them. Help them realize, like, hey, I've been in your shoes, I was scrubbing that same spot and I know that it sucks, but I'm going to make it better for you because I want you to have a better experience than I did. Right? And so you show that empathy and you acknowledge that, hey, this is something that's not fun, right? You can come to me when you have problems, you can come to me when there's an issue, you can come to me when you need to talk to somebody, make it positive.

Right?

That's that respect side.

I definitely agree. I think there's a level of that respect that comes from when you introduce it, potentially even a new communication channel. But the fact that the channel allows for open communication and that communication is you have to create an environment and a culture that allows communication and it's accepted. Communication is allowed to be open and direct in the spirit of helping. I think a part of the key component to that is making sure that it's respectful. Right.

When you think about Alex's question too, how do you do it without it feeling micromanaging? Our number one and our number two, is it right? You create the reliable approach from your own view, give them that channel, help them realize how to be reliable in it, and then show that respect, that empathy.

Yeah.

Because once you do that, now you get to R3, which is assessing or reviewing the effectiveness of those channels and how we're communicating.

Right.

So what are your thoughts on reviewing?

So when it comes to reviewing communication, I often think of having one on ones with employees. I'm not going to dive into the details of holding a one on one, but the idea of reviewing your effective communication, how are things being communicated and allowing an avenue for your frontline staff to talk about how things are being communicated and to have it not have personal attack vibes, you know what I mean? Yeah. It's creating an environment to be able to review communication. It's a guarantee information communication falls through the cracks. It happens because we are human beings. Right. And the better at systems and processes and procedures, yes, it gets pretty tight knit. Things can't slip through the cracks in better systems, but it can still happen. And so when it comes to review, pulling up data, pulling up past communications in a way that says, hey, I want to make sure we're on the same page, it all comes from your delivery. As a manager, if you say, sit down, you slipped through the cracks and you didn't do what you were told. You didn't create an environment that allows it for the safety of reviewing.

Help me understand why you weren't able to achieve this task and let's discuss how we can do it better the next time. Yeah, that sounded a lot better than what Kaden just said. Yeah, right.

But then once you review, Sam, typically, if it makes sense, and I would feel like often there are processes that can be revised because when you're reviewing things, often you uncover, hey, there's a little area for improvement here. If we just tweaked this process or this playbook that we follow in one spot here, then let's go revise it. So that's our next R is to revise. Because the more understanding that you gain from going through this process, it allows the team to feel like feedback is actually listened to. Right. It doesn't feel like micromanagement. Alex, to your question, it doesn't feel like micromanagement when you're using feedback to actually revise systems and processes. Say, hey, how can we make this better? And sometimes this is what also revise could be for. If you don't revise the system process because you found exactly what was the problem and it wasn't the process, but you need to revise the way you communicated the process. Then you as leadership revise your process for communication. Right. Because the employee didn't understand it with clarity and have the correct expectations set. And so revising goes both ways. It's not just, hey, I gotta revise a process cause they came up with something better. I'm a big advocate that the front line has great ideas and feedback for processes and so they should be listened to. But it's also recognizing that we as leaders and managers sometimes communicated in a way in a channel that wasn't effective. And we need to revise our process because the understanding and the delivery of it wasn't received correctly in the intended outcome. And then lastly is rewarding.

You gotta reward when people do what you've shifted to, right? So you set a new communication system, you've set up a channel, you've streamlined cohesively, put your processes together with those communication channels, you're going to monitor its effectiveness and you're going to highlight or reward the people that have really honed in and actually taken that ability to heart, right? People will come to me and we talk about implementing a software, right? And they say, how do I get this to happen? And I always tell them, find the people that you have built a relationship with, you've built that reliable trust with, right? You have a mutual respect for the work that each of you are doing. And you know your roles, right? Find those people first, get them to buy in, get them to work on that and reward them for that effort. And then other employees will see that, hey, they're actually being rewarded for doing what is necessary to excel.

Right.

And be more effective. I should try that. Or you might find the one bad apple and say, okay, well it's not working out. Right? And that's okay too because you want people on the team that actually are willing to help you be more successful in your role and then their role, right? And as a team, you are now moving towards a more effective, more appropriate approach to high performance. And so you reinforce and reward with positive behavior, encouraging the continued collaboration those people who are actively taking part in the effort of change.

You know, when you said bad apple, the first thing I thought of was some of the bad apples among leaders, the managers that we've worked with over the years, they say that going through this amount of work to correct employees actions and develop a good system for them, it doesn't make sense because they're going to turn over anyways. Like they're going to stick around long. That's a bad apple.

People don't quit jobs, they quit managers.

Yeah. And so when I thought of that immediately, I was just like, you know, that's kind of the same sentiment that, oh, well, what happens if we invest in people and they leave? And then the CEO says, well, what happens if we don't invest in people and they stay? It's that old time adage of that analogy that if you choose not to, which a lot of people do, unfortunately. So if you're looking for a competitive advantage as a building service contractor or trying to streamline operations as a facility manager, take the time and energy to streamline communications. Follow the 5errs of this framework because it will deliver a process. It's not gonna do it all for you, but eventually it'll just get to a point where it's in a rhythm again, foundationally, culturally. It's embedded into how you operate. You as a magnetic operator attract. We said it in one of the beginning episodes of the series. Your vibe attracts your tribe. Right? If you don't invest the time and energy to develop magnetic operational frameworks that lure people in, that attract people to want to be their best version of themselves, then you can expect a chaotic, not well oiled machine that deteriorates and causes constant friction amongst a service provider's experience.

But Caden, my most valuable asset is my people. I gotta focus on them.

False.

What?

So I'm of the belief I just.

Softballed that to him.

I think I've said this before.

He has.

I say it often. Your most valuable asset as an organization is your processes.

Write that down.

Beings follow. Human beings aren't an asset, they're a human being.

That's also true.

They deserve to be recognized as such. I'm a believer that your process as an organization is your greatest asset. The communication processes that we've been talking about today is your greatest asset. People come and go all the time and our job as leaders is to ensure that as they come and go that it is an incredible experience and one that they'll remember forever. I often think of Hollywood stars that talk about how they got their start in the cleaning industry as if it was like some beginner's job. But yet what do they do? They highlight some of the most valuable lessons that they learned in an early stage career. That, hey, I spent some time as a custodian and there's some incredible things learned amongst service provider roles. And I think you have a responsibility as an organization, whether you're a facility director, whether you're the building service contractor, it doesn't matter. I believe it is your job that the employees that come and work for you get to experience what it's like to work for a magnetic operator. But you've got to do the work. And that myth or objection of oh.

I, I don't want the time, I.

Don'T have the time and people are just going to churn anyways. Well, I can already tell you what kind of organization you're going to be and it's not one that people are going to remember when they're up on a bigger stage one day being like, oh yeah, remember that time I worked for this? They taught me some valuable lessons. No, they're going to be like the worst person I ever worked was.

I wouldn't go that far. But it could be.

Could be.

But to that point, the okay, operator doesn't want to give the time. The elite MO is going to give the time to the process. Because if you have a honed in process, your people will be more effective, they'll be more successful, which leads to happier employees. And those employees will deliver a service that is high quality, that leads to happier customers or stakeholders. And that's what we were getting to, is they're not being micromanaged. If we build that trust, we use this framework, Alex. And then once you've set that up and you're checking those things frequently now, you get to deliver a higher quality service with engaged and rewarded employees through a process that you took time to build.

Yeah.

And that is the elite mo.

Correct. And when you dive into and care for your employees, your own job satisfaction goes up. I wanted to make sure we talk about that. Is your ability to be happy in your role as a manager, as a supervisor, as a leader, as a building service contract, as a CEO is when your frontline staff are at peak performance. Like, you get to sleep at night knowing that your team can actually take care of things because of the operational frameworks you've deployed.

You're not chasing them down. Micromanaging, Alex. You get to actually let them do their job and you get to do yours and spend time what matters most in your role.

Yeah. So that's a wrap on today's episode. Alex, thank you so much for your contribution. Thank you. If you have a question for us regarding magnetic operations and procedures as a building service contractor and as a facility manager, email it in@vipadenhutchins.com we will address it. We'll go through it on the show. Appreciate your participation. Please like and subscribe. Follow for more and make sure that you got those notifications turned on because once new episodes drop, you'll be the first to be notified. So perfect. That's a wrap on today's episode. We'll see you next time. See ya.