Hiring Wisdom: Do You Involve Your Staff in Changes Before They Happen?

One of my favorite lunch spots changed the way they serve iced tea.

They used to put a full carafe and a glass with ice and a slice of lemon on the table and I’d happily serve myself two or three glasses during my meal. Last week, my server brought me a single glass of tea and, when it was empty, brought me a new, full glass.

This scene repeated itself twice more.

Running changes by those affected

When I asked, “Why the change?”, my server didn’t know, but agreed it didn’t make much sense – especially during the busy lunch hour.

Besides the extra work it created for her, there were all those extra lemon slices to serve and glasses to wash. A little thing maybe, but, all told, it probably cost a pretty penny.

It seems that no one thought to ask the wait staff what they thought of the idea before implementation. This is why it’s a best practice to run your ideas by all the people who will be affected (employees and a sampling of customers as well) before you make any changes.

This was originally published on Mel Kleiman’s Humetrics blog.