The Value of Communication with Employees in your Business

Episode 042: Having covered Comparison and Conflict, now Vonda and Lori discuss an even more important "C" word, Communication. With the holidays quickly approaching, open, two way communication with your staff couldn't be more important.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:06

That's where communication breakdown is, is because I assume you should know that. Yes, there is more way you would know that

Speaker 2 0:26

[inaudible]

Speaker 1 0:27

Laurie , we're back with a, another word starting with a C. Yes, this is our third C right? We did conflict. We did comparison Harrison. And this one, we are doing the big C communication communication. The most important one, I would think. Yes. So important. I actually have a bachelor's degree in communication. You'd think I'd be really good at this, but you know what? I'm just going to step back then and just let you know . I will tell you in going through these steps that we researched and decided to find, I was like, wow, I need to go back and look at some notes. Some college textbooks. I think communication is so many times is common sense. Oh yeah . That's another C . Here we go. There's another C . Yep . It is. But what we have to remember is it, depending on the situation I, common sense is not the same as your common sense, you know , true . Our common sense kind of comes from experience. You know, how people are like, Oh, they got some street smarts or meaning common sense. Everything's your common sense? When it comes to creating a design in flowers is very different than my common sense. True. That's why we have to work on our communication skills so that we can all communicate properly more effectively. Let's set actively more effectively. And we look at that even when we talk about floral design. So sometimes I'm showing somebody a technique. If I'm talking about it, I'm not sharing every one of the steps because I'm just doing it. And so communication is both verbal and nonverbal and in floral design in teaching that nonverbal communication is so key. You know, a good example that reminds me of when you and Julie poacher were teaching me how to tide bows . When we were doing flower prep school, do you remember that? And even this week, you and I had a person that's going through the training mentioned, I really liked that segment on bow making because you gave different options. But if you remember before we hit the record button, you were going over with me. Cause of course I was trying to practice. So I didn't look like a complete idiot when I was doing it . And I was like, wait, Vonda, wait, wait, wait, what did you do here? And you're like, Oh, okay. Like it's so in your street smarts on how to do it. Second nature had to stop and you actually took a piece of scrap paper and you kind of wrote out like step one and stuff . So you would know I got to hit all these points. And sometimes that's what's happens when communication, right. That's where communication breakdown is, is because I assume you should know that. Yes, there is no way you would know that I've always bought them. No everything in communications . Let's just dive into the list that you came up with. We went through , through this list and dwindled it down to, okay . Yeah, really? We have six steps. No . So number one, and this is when communicating with your staff, your employees, you also Vonda, we didn't really talk about this, but I think all of these are good. When thinking about communicating with your customers too , you know, as far as number one, be clear and concise. Oh, absolutely. Whether you're talking to employee or you're talking to a customer, right? Yes. Right. So using technical jargon or floral industry jargon with new employees and, or customers can backfire on you. Cause confusion. For sure. Like if I was calling a flower shop and you were describing, I don't know, maybe I wanted some pink flowers and you were telling me all of the different things in it, using your pittosporum, all of these things that I don't really know what they are. Or if I would say Lori , I'm going to create a beat or Meyer arrangement with pink roses. Oh , I know his roses in pink. And I thought you said beetle juice. And what's the movie. And I have no idea. I'm thinking of bugs now. So the jargon can lead to confusion and misunderstanding. Right? Simplify what you've say. I use language that everybody uses in everyday life. I think you're going to outline whatever your expectation is, whatever the end result you want out of this communication outline that. So it's very clear. One of our flower click members talks about this. She had a new employee and she said it was one of those moments where she had to check herself and go, wow, who do I think I am? She was teaching them. I think it was even like buckets. Like, okay, I need you to go back and wash the buckets, cleaning my bucket. That's out in my backyard that I put leaves and things as very different than cleaning a bucket that you guys use in the shop . And so she went back there and I don't remember what the girl was doing, but the owner was a little taken aback and the girl very bug. I just like, I don't know, this is how I clean buckets. I just thought she's like , Oh God , you know ? So it was one of those moments. Yeah, for sure. We assume people know. And we can't again, I know I just said that, but we can't assume very concise in your communication. Don't assume everyone has the same experience. Background street smarts. Common sense as you do. Perfect. Love it. And the next one set the tone at the top, the top, right? It does, you know , match your action with your words . As a former flower shop owner. I always knew that if I expected somebody to do something, I'm going to model that I'm going to let them know that I can do this and you can do this. This reminds me of a good friend of my husband and I we've been friends with him for years. He and two other men own a lot of companies. They're out of Cleveland. They got into the steel industry, which is a big deal in that area. But one thing he told me a long time ago and again, very high level. Like he flies in his own private jet, wherever he needs to be. But he said, Laurie , I've done everything you can do in the steel mill started like in high school because his dad worked at one like normal, good blue collar worker. So he learned the trade and he went on to college and then he started working there. But when he got the job, they were like, you got to know every facet of this. And so he knew everything from what the custodial jobs seriously, what the custodians did all the way up. And now he owns these companies. But he said, there is no employee that cannot come to him with a complaint where he can't say, yeah, I get it. I remember that. Wow. Deal with that too . I know not every business owner comes with that. Like you've been in the business since you were 14, then you owned your own flower shop. So you could say, yeah, I've been there, done that. I get it. Here's how I handled it. If I was to buy a flower shop and didn't know, I would for sure, need a good manager or somebody that has walked in their shoes. And I think that is something we're seeing more and more. Right. So we're seeing people who are investing in flower shops. Yeah . And then the communication needs to be key between the person who owns that shop and the manager, and then the managers, especially if that owner is not in the shop mage , then that manager is the one who really has to have key communication with the employees. Right. All right . Through all channels. Yeah. So the manager has to have great communication with the employees, but the manager also has to have a free line to that owner. Yes, for sure. I feel like that could be kind of a scary job to be the new manager of a new flower shop, even if I had the experience. But I wasn't sure on what my bosses thoughts were. I don't know. That's interesting. That'd be a tough situation, but I know it can be done. It definitely can be done. And I do think that it has to be a strategic plan on we're checking in once a week or whatever those checkpoints are, but the communication that one's key more than ever really. Yeah. So number three thing to remember, understand your employees. This to me goes back to when I taught school and every student learns differently for the most part, they're different levels of learning. And so it's my job to figure out, okay, this one is more of an auditory learner. This one's more of a visual learner and to implement enough curriculum that covers all those bases. So that they're all gonna learn, even though they do it different, different ways. And I feel like that's kind of what the manager has to do. Definitely. Some of it I found had to do with whether you were working with an introvert or an extrovert, the extroverts, obviously you could tell they were getting it. They could communicate. Or if they didn't, they would tell you as an owner, you have to really pay attention and say, okay, she's back there. She seems to get it. Tell for sure. So I need to do more communication with the introvert to see that she's understanding it and feels like she's part of the team. Yeah, no, that's good. You always got to have your eyes and ears open. You know, we need quiet ones. Heck clearly I am not the quiet one, but we need those people, but let's close down to why it's so important to understand the employees. Yep . Yep . Number four. Oh, this one we dabbled with this one and it makes complete sense. It's why we put it in here. Notify your employees first. If you are making a change in your business, let's be clear. We're not talking about if you've decided you're going to retire and you want to sell your business. We've had a lot of people come to us that are in that position. We're like , but I don't want my staff to know yet. Cause I don't want to freak them out. Let's put that one aside. Let's put that category over to the left as not really what we're talking about. What we're talking about is if you've made the decision, I don't want to do weddings anymore. I'm tired of big weddings. They take way too much time. They take energy. I talk to businesses all the time that are kind of moving in that direction. Well, you need to let the whole staff know you need to let them on your little secret so that when somebody, a bride comes in and wants a consultation, they have the verbiage. They need to say no, but here's what you can do. The other thing is you might have an employee that last wedding it's like, they want that to be their thing. And if you're removing that from your business, they deserve to know, and it might make you change your mind. You might say, Oh, well, if you love them and you're willing to work weekends, we'd not want to stop doing that. Yeah . But I think also little things that are happening in the business flower shops have a lot of part time employees. So if you have a part time, employee is working Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then on Tuesday you will make an announcement to the rest of the staff that you're going to do pedal it forward this year, or you're going to have a virtual open house. Right? The rest of the staff will come in on Wednesday and you're starting to do changes. And they're like, what's going on? Yeah . I think just that communication notified them before it's in the newspaper or on social media or on the radio, we were doing this at our shop. I'm curious how many flower shops have like a group text of their staff or a group email, especially during COVID, you know, with all of us kind of being in and out. So I am interested in knowing if that's been more of a form of communication than it used to be. I don't know all your employees, boy, that's just so easy to be able to kind of create everything that's going on. I was on the phone with one of our members this morning. I was calling her about something and that's noise in the background. And I was like, what are you doing? She goes, Oh, I'm on a zoom call. I'm on a zoom staff meeting right now. I was like, well good for you. And then I'm like, why did you answer the phone? I felt like she said, cause I knew it was good for her. The next one we totally believe in so important. And that's to train often continue education, whether it be floral, whether it's sales, maybe it's technology, something that they can continually be informed of and grow within the business because it's good for you as far as an owner, but it's also good for them. It's for value, they feel important. They feel like they're being fed. Yeah . Yeah. I think of allied florists. If Houston, before COVID I left, when I would go to those events and the owners would be bringing all of their employees and you know, each class, I thought how valuable those employees must feel like, Hey, I'm paying for this. Let's all go together. And they're fun too. And you meet people and you get inspired. All of those little things are the conventions. You know, when we've gone to SAS and we've gone to AISD and we've met not only business owners, but they've paid for their employees to come cause they understand the importance of education and building into that employee. I think that's huge. It's really important as an employer, to be able to look at the employees with pride when they come through that to wow, look at how much they got out of this, whether it is they set through a sales presentation and really got what's going on or learn a little bit more about the industry. If it's design , it's obvious because you can see the change in their design, but there's so much that as an employee, you can get out of this, seeing that it's really great. Yeah, exactly. A number six communicate regularly. So here's another C consistently. I think now more than ever being consistent in your communications, whether it's every Tuesday and email's going to go an all employee email go out or every Friday morning, we're going to have a staff zoom or you know , whatever it is be strategic. And even if you have to make yourself a little notification, it gets easy to lose sight. Especially the part time employees, maybe the ones that aren't coming in as much, or the ones that are choosing to stay home right now, because maybe are immune compromised. You know, they miss you guys. So as long as you can be as inclusive as possible, even if it's a quick little email or a group text, I think that's huge. It is. It really is. And that's what, like you just mentioned, Janet, with staff meetings, staff meetings are huge to be able to do that. And then one-on-one check ins with your employees, whether it's once a year, sometimes it needs to be more often than that, but make sure that you're having those strategic checkpoints to see one how they're doing, but also to get the advice from them. How am I doing? How do you you're doing here at the shop? Is there anything that you think we could do to improve what's happening here? And we've talked about that before. Not feedback , not feedback because that's negative that for some reason, the psychology in our brain tells us when a superior asks for feedback, we tend to be a , we're not going to ask, we're not going to say thing because they're going to see it as negative. But if you say, do you have any advice for me when you're asking someone for advice that kind of changes the whole sentence, the concept of the sentence, where I'm like, Oh, they're wanting my advice on something. Well, yes, I will tell them, Hey, I don't like that shirt you're wearing. That's my, if I don't wear there , but in my mind, I'm helping them because they asked for it. So now you value what I say, but before when you're saying feedback, you're like, yeah, okay. What are you going to give me otherwise when you're saying, what , what advice I'm giving you value employee ? I think it's huge. No, I do. I absolutely think it's huge. You want to make sure that they have trust. They have to have trust in you to be able to give that advice or feedback and you have to be able to trust them. So it's the two way communication. It's not like I'm on the top, Laurie . And you're going to listen to what I have to say, and this is what's going on. Right? Right. Always have so much value. Yeah. I think this one probably falls under set the tone at the top. Number two. But one thing that I think is kind of a big deal. You and I have joked about our parents saying do, as I say, not as I do my , my great aunt, Ramona me in the backseat and her smoking and driving in the front seat, but saying bad smell . Don't you ever smoke? You know, and she's smoking. But I remember this back in the seventies, but it was a do, as I say, not as I do, we can't do that. Shop owners have told me they've caught themselves in his drama. Like laying down the law. No gossiping. I am not dealing with this yet. Somehow you got pulled in and they caught you doing it. Or cell phone rules. You know , that was no where people are on it now. But few years ago, everyone's so annoyed because especially your younger part, timers were like constantly scrolling. And so they would lay down the law and then it comes back and backfires. So whatever law you laid down or rule a model, it too , you can't do the do. As I say, not as I do because you know what, great aunt Ramona, she died of lung cancer. She was a great lady. You got to think through this, is this a rule that I'm willing to follow too ? Yeah . If you're going to set the rule, you have to live by that. Yes. Yes. If I set the rule, we have to wear pink shirts. Am I willing to do that? So whatever it is, you gotta follow it too , because you're willing to wear a pink shirt every day. I would , I would implement that rule five days a week that you could maybe wear purple. I would follow that rule because it is my favorite color. But when you're implementing guidelines for the structure of your shop, you think about that. Is this something that I can follow too ? Right? And then communicate it through the channels so that everybody knows. Right ? Exactly. Exactly. Better to tell everyone something multiple times or something that they already know then for them to say, well, you didn't tell me that. So over communication key. And it's like, we've talked about that with children, right? It's like, you already told me that they , you still haven't unloaded the dishwasher. I know I've told you five times, sweet sweetheart that I have yet to see you do it. And I'm sure I have told you things many times. I say Laurie , this and this and this. And then I probably come back and go. Maybe I told you this, but Laurie was getting Alzheimer's. But when you do tell me something, by the third time, me knowing, okay, this is my boss. I'm doing quotations here. As we say that, it tells me this is really important to her. Okay. How can we maybe make this work? So I think subordinates that are truly intuitive and listening in a business, they're going to understand, okay. She's told me this three times that she really doesn't feel like we should do weddings anymore. We need to probably have a conversation here. Like it's okay. It's okay to overstate. And I think it also means over-communicate if it is a guideline, yes. Keep repeating that . But put it in writing. If right now you're still not comfortable having people in your store, which I know a lot of people they're like, here's our guidelines. Let's make sure everyone's on the same page. This is what we are doing right now. That's so important. I'm glad you brought that up. It's like, are we wearing master ? We not wearing masks or cleaning our hands before we come in the door. Everybody on the same page. Right? Right. Okay. I hope this was helpful. Vonda. I think hopefully going into the holidays, this might be a good one for people away for sure. Lori , because what happens is designers are working, whether it's 20 hours, 30 hours, 40 hours right now. And as it gets closer to the holiday as an employer, I'm like, I know Lori can work more. So I'm just gonna count on Lori , working more, instead of going to her and saying, Laurie , we're coming up to Thanksgiving. I probably will need you a few more hours. The few days before Thanksgiving, then we're rolling into Christmas. And I know you don't always work on Saturdays, but every other Saturday, I'd really like for you to count on working for us and communicate that now, Laurie before, gosh, what do you mean? I just, you work every year, every other Saturday. Why would you not be doing it this year? Just confirm . Because again, it's always nice to be asked when you go and ask your employee, your designer, Hey, you know, here's what we did last year. Are you okay with this? That makes them feel like they have a say in it . Right, right. And they do. But I'm just saying, Oh, that's a, that's a respect thing. I need you these weeks. Then they feel like they really are an important part of the team as well, which we know they are. But being asked is good, but also always that communication, especially when we're getting close to that . So there's no surprises. And I would imagine there are some employees that are like, I really want to be able to take off this time, but I'm kind of scared to ask. So bring it up, bring it hard conversations. Right. We talk about that in conflict. When we did first nations conversations and sometimes from an employee standpoint, this is, it is scary to ask for time off. Yes, for sure. Anyway. Alright . The here's the question of the week. What is giving you life right now? What's giving me life right now is just probably a little silly , um, weekly planner. And you can see that Lori , it has what I do. Important things. I write down three important things I need to get done every day. And I write things down on this. Obviously I have a digital calendar, but this, I like to be able to write it on on the side has a, to do list with the little checklist. So I'm just loving this new layout. And it just makes me so excited to be able to say, okay, these are only three things that I have to get done today. Although I peel you, rip it off a day or is it a spiral after a week, I rip it off. Nice. So if I don't get something done on Tuesday that I should've gotten done, I can actually write it in Wednesday. Wow. I like it. I'm with you. We are both very old school. I figured out why I write. When I write things out, it gives me time to process it a little more, just typing or copying and pasting content to look at. I don't retain it as well. But if I'm talking on the phone with someone named Josh, I'm going to be asking him questions and I'm going to be writing answers because as I write it triggers another question I might need to ask him. But if I'm typing all that out , I'm not going to so true. And maybe it's our age. So what is the new life? What is giving me life? Well , you know this, I decided this week and I decided, because I was literally sitting in the living room with my husband and my youngest child who is going to be 20 next month. And we were watching TV, but I looked over and all three of us were watching it. But we were also just scrolling on our phone, nothing particular, but just scrolling . And I thought , what is happening? This is becoming such a physical part of our life. Like it is all my phone is always in my hand . So I deleted my social media apps off of my cellphone . Now I want to be clear. I know I need to be on Facebook for flower, click and Instagram. So I have access to them on my computer. You know, I'm not like completely re so I always wake up in the middle of the night between three 30 and four and I can't sleep. And I used to just look down and squirrel through my phone. Cause I could not go back to sleep. Wow. I'll open like my Bible app or I have a Kindle on there and I will read and I'm like, wow, I'm getting smarter. Like I'm finding myself eating more. And for me I feel better. That's pretty cool. That's not weird. Not at all. I feel more peaceful. Feel like the time I'm spending, when I am on my phone, I'm like, I'm reading some really good books. I've got a couple on there and then I'll pick which one I want to read. And so anyway, that's I can't promise you. They're always going to be off my phone, but for right now I extended this challenge to the two males in the room and they were like, we're good. It really doesn't matter to them or it didn't make them . I'm not a big influencer. What's giving you. Life is not giving them life. Yeah , we're good . All right . See you next time. We have certainly enjoyed our time together today and we look forward to being with you guys again, if you have any questions, concerns, comments, anything we would love to hear from you. You can always email Laurie at flower, click.com . Also, if you enjoy our little podcast, go ahead and click that subscribe button. That's very helpful for us and you can even leave a review and we hope you join us next week. Yes. So please come back and join us and discover how a bit of knowledge and one small change on your mindset. Just take you to new levels in your life and business .

Speaker 2 29:42

[inaudible] .