Cal Ripkin, Jr., a shortstop and third baseman for baseball’s Baltimore Orioles, holds the record for most consecutive games played: 2,632 consecutive games, a streak compiled over more than 16 years. When that happened, a reporter from the Wall Street Journal called and asked me if any of our employees had a similar record – I told her about Irene Greene, a cocktail waitress who had perfect attendance at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas for 43 years; that’s 53,750 consecutive daily shifts. I like telling this story because good attendance is what managers want from their employees; to feel the importance of being there for their colleagues and customers every day. The best employees understand this and have good attendance, but it’s the employees who don’t that create a ripple effect in scheduling that’s very challenging. Poor attendance is usually the single greatest cause of active disciplines and involuntary separations, especially in the hospitality business. I think the best antidote for that is management making employees feel needed and appreciated – we instituted an award of an extra day off with pay for employees who had perfect attendance for 6 consecutive months. While we weren’t sure if that would be a good enough incentive, we were pleasantly surprised when nearly 70% of our employees earned it. Don’t just hope that good attendance happens – put your money where your mouth is. Do what it takes to show your employees that there’s no such thing as an unimportant day today.
Alexander Humphreys Woollcott (1887 – 1943): American drama critic and commentator for The New Yorker magazine, an occasional actor and playwright, and a prominent radio personality.
Learn more about this eccentric fellow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Woollcott
No comments:
Post a Comment