There is a bill before the State Senate in Michigan called the Family Education Leave Act that allows employees up to 10 hours of unpaid time off each year to attend school functions without retribution from the employer.
My first thought was… Really? We need a law for that?
Let’s start with this simple premise…
Your business is only as good as the employees in it.
Can we agree on that? Therefore, to make your business better, you need better employees. You can do that one of two ways.
- Hire better people
- Train your people better
Obviously, even if you do the first, you will still need to do the second to reach your maximum potential.
Wanna know a secret that makes #2 easier?
Wanna know a secret that makes #2 easier?
Treat your people better.
The better you treat your staff – the more you praise them, appreciate them, recognize that they have a life outside of work – the better and harder they will work for you. That is simple human nature.
My employees know that I will bend over backwards to make sure they can attend school events, sporting events, and other milestone moments in their children’s lives. In return, my employees also bend over backwards to cover for each other, and make sure my business is running smoothly.
We don’t need a law, we need better employers. Be one of those better employers. It is good for your business.
-Phil Wrzesinski
PS Some people cannot be trained better no matter how hard you try. Fire them and go back to #1. Sometimes, however, it isn’t the training or the person that is at fault, it is the culture. You determine the culture by who you hire and how you treat them.