Gaining Perspective

My goal in the first month was to gain a full perspective of the businesses most important asset, namely its employees. Because the office is set up in such a way that there is no privacy, and I wanted to get to know each of the employees at a personal level. I took them each to lunch individually.

The company has 9 employees, an independent contractor, the former owner, and me. I started by taking myself to lunch to see what I thought of the company I just bought. Actually, I did take myself to lunch the second day because I wanted to give enough warning to each employee so that they could plan for it. After that, I started with seniority and worked my way down.

The only downside to this approach is it added a few pounds to my waistline. In fact, several employees commented about how they appreciated this approach. They got to get to know me much quicker than had it only been normal work interactions, and I got to know them.

My main questions were about them and trying to understand where they grew up what they like to do outside of work, why they like the work, where they wanted their career to go, etc. I also answered every question they posed to me, including the tough ones.

This process started building trust, which has continued to grow. With this added to the fact that they are continuing to get paychecks, my credibility with them continues to grow.

I also learned interesting things about the business which while some are considered warts, most were relatively minor. One of the biggest surprises was the amount of paid vacation time given. I had assumed a good deal of them were given 3 weeks, since most have been with the company for over 10 years, and the surprise was that most were only at 2 weeks. From current research, this seems below average, and needs to be corrected. This delta will hit the bottom line, but I feel it needs to be done.

Please let me know what you think of this approach, and what you think is fair for vacation time.