The home heating oil industry has a long and proud history, and Fuel Oil News has been there supporting it since 1935. It is an industry that has faced many challenges during that time. In its 77th year, Fuel Oil News is doing more than just holding
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O p e r at i o n a l I n s i g h t QUID PRO QUO O Shane Sweet I had several discussions with industry leaders on the topic of the employeremployee dynamic. Merriam-Webster defines Quid Pro Quo as "something that is given to you or done for you in return for something you have given to or done for someone else." Fundamentally, we are talking about balance a relationship between employer and employee, and as the owner or management, how good a job have you done making sure your people are clear about what they must know? For example, are you clear and concise about: • Where everyone's job begins and ends? • What the "policy" is for any number of typical internal or external dilemmas? • Who has the ball when someone is sick, on vacation, or leaves the company? • How much autonomy your employees may exercise? • Changes to policy, procedure or guide lines and the manner in which the entire staff is made aware of changes? How does one achieve the balance? Step 1: Determine what needs to be communicated. Step 2: Write it down. Step 3: Repeat. As the boss, I can't complain about an employee not doing something if I never told him or her in the first place, so create a 'manual' for your use and the use of your staff. For me, an "Employee Manual" conjures up images of a three-ring-binder nearly four 42 ver the summer months inches thick; written back when five watt analog cellular phones were the rage, contains a ream of boilerplate text that no one read, and since its printing, has been stuck up on the shelf to collect dust. Its value lies only in entertainment: How long before shelf snaps under its weight? I would opt instead for a "PPG" or "Policies, Procedures and Guidelines" document. This is "living document" and a distant cousin of the boat anchor referenced in the paragraph above. Practically, we are talking about a comprehensive reference document that: • Constantly changes as things change • Is searchable for words or strings or text • Has a permanent digital address at IP xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (vs. that dated 20 pounds of paper) • Is updated by pretty much everyone that works in the company • Is in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format so anyone can access it • Is actually used by staff. (Use as a door stop does not count) At your company, when someone asks: "Suzie is out on vacation this week; how does she process the spreadsheet and data dump from Excel into the system?" Is this the answer? "No problem, the step-by-step is on the server and it will walk you through it step by step. I have done it before and had no problems." Or: "I have no idea. Suzie is the only one that does that, no one else has ever been trained on how to do that, plus, we don't have Suzie's password, and there is nothing in writing anywhere to help us even begin to October 2013 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www.fueloilnews.com do it, never mind determine if we did it right, so I guess it will have to wait until Suzie gets back?" Pretty ugly, I know, but a PPG can make this go away, or at least reduce it to happening only once. The bad news is that the majority of energy marketers out there simply do not have much of anything in writing that addresses procedure, policy or even basic employment guidelines. This also takes time and you cannot do it in a day, so in the past I would schedule 15 minutes a day to create content necessary to the document. The good news is, if you are lacking in this area, you can fix it starting today. Don't fuss over the way it looks right off (you can play with formatting later) and rest assured you will not run out of things to explain. Involve staff in its creation and it will go a lot faster. Look at yourself as the editor who has final say before it "goes to press." Publish any item as soon as you are happy with it. Repeat. l FON Shane Sweet is an energy and management executive with clients in the heating oil, propane and motor fuel sectors. From 1993 to 2007 he served as Executive VP/ Director and Lobbyist for the Vermont Fuel Dealers Association and from 2007 through 2010 was President & CEO of the New England Fuel Institute. He lives in Shaftsbury, Vermont and can be reached at shanemsweet@gmail.com or 802-558-6101 cell/text. Suggestions by readers for future column content, as well as general comments are welcome.