I feel like this is a pretty unique problem, maybe not? Really looking for some advice here. I'll start with a story. Company across the road from me started a wood/metal furniture business a couple years ago. Their company exploded! Went from zero to $2M/yr in sales in less than 2 years. He was making something like $40K/Month in profit. Well he couldn't keep up with his orders, people started complaining that they weren't getting their stuff, their quality control started to fall apart as they were rushing to keep up with orders, and in the end the place the site they sold all their stuff on shut them down. Just like that, out of business.
I'm not in the exact same situation, but I tell my customers I will ship WITHIN 3 weeks, and 90% of my orders are shipped ON the ship by date. I don't want to hire someone to handle customer support, since I feel like I should be the face of the company, and no one knows my costs better than I do for custom quoting, etc. My hands are tied up for most of the day dealing with customers, quoting, etc. I have 7 guys out on the floor making stuff, and their efficiency (by my basic calculations) is like 20%. They all love their job, they're happy to come to work, very happy throughout the day, but they stand around talking a lot, they don't ever look for ways to save time on the jobs they are doing. It's very poorly run out there. I hired a guy about a year ago who was older, local, and was looking for a job very close to home. He had a lot of foreman experience running large shops in the past. His last job went out of business, then he found me. I thought that would be a great opportunity for me to hire someone with his experience to run the shop.
Things got a little bit better, but he's for sure not doing the best he can. I feel like he's got a lot of potential, but I just can't get him motivated to work. His son also works here, and his son is pretty good. I'm worried that if I take his promotion away, he and his son will quit, which would really leave me SOL right now.
Here are some things that I've started recently to try and turn things around a little: Monthly performance reviews for my shop foreman. Basically I have him fill out a sheet saying how well he thinks things are going in the shop, then I compare his answers to my answers. Then he lists a couple things he plans to change in a couple different categories, like QC, efficiency increase, organization, etc, then he sets a goal for each one and we review that goal at the next review. I just started this month, so I'm not sure if this is going to work or not, but at least he will know what I expect from him. I'm debating if I should do something similar with the rest of the employees or not since I don't work with them very much.
I know most of you are shops of 1 or 2, but I'd like to hear some advice from any of you have been in a similar situation as I'm in. Is it worth my time to be investing so much in the shop foreman? Are there other things I should be doing that help get people to work more efficiently? I've seen what these guys are capable of when I push them, so I know they're capable of working so much faster. I also know it's not reasonable for me to expect them to work at 100% effort all day every day, but they should be doing way more than what they're currently doing. I feel like I could hire 50 more people and I would still be in the same situation...
I'm not in the exact same situation, but I tell my customers I will ship WITHIN 3 weeks, and 90% of my orders are shipped ON the ship by date. I don't want to hire someone to handle customer support, since I feel like I should be the face of the company, and no one knows my costs better than I do for custom quoting, etc. My hands are tied up for most of the day dealing with customers, quoting, etc. I have 7 guys out on the floor making stuff, and their efficiency (by my basic calculations) is like 20%. They all love their job, they're happy to come to work, very happy throughout the day, but they stand around talking a lot, they don't ever look for ways to save time on the jobs they are doing. It's very poorly run out there. I hired a guy about a year ago who was older, local, and was looking for a job very close to home. He had a lot of foreman experience running large shops in the past. His last job went out of business, then he found me. I thought that would be a great opportunity for me to hire someone with his experience to run the shop.
Things got a little bit better, but he's for sure not doing the best he can. I feel like he's got a lot of potential, but I just can't get him motivated to work. His son also works here, and his son is pretty good. I'm worried that if I take his promotion away, he and his son will quit, which would really leave me SOL right now.
Here are some things that I've started recently to try and turn things around a little: Monthly performance reviews for my shop foreman. Basically I have him fill out a sheet saying how well he thinks things are going in the shop, then I compare his answers to my answers. Then he lists a couple things he plans to change in a couple different categories, like QC, efficiency increase, organization, etc, then he sets a goal for each one and we review that goal at the next review. I just started this month, so I'm not sure if this is going to work or not, but at least he will know what I expect from him. I'm debating if I should do something similar with the rest of the employees or not since I don't work with them very much.
I know most of you are shops of 1 or 2, but I'd like to hear some advice from any of you have been in a similar situation as I'm in. Is it worth my time to be investing so much in the shop foreman? Are there other things I should be doing that help get people to work more efficiently? I've seen what these guys are capable of when I push them, so I know they're capable of working so much faster. I also know it's not reasonable for me to expect them to work at 100% effort all day every day, but they should be doing way more than what they're currently doing. I feel like I could hire 50 more people and I would still be in the same situation...