Spring Clean Your Way to Better Performance

The best thing about spring cleaning is the way your house looks afterwards. The windows sparkle, the appliances are showroom shiny, and there's not a dust bunny to be found. It's great. Of course, it takes some work to get to this point, but when you're done, it's definitely worth it.

I'm sure you can guess why I bring up spring cleaning. That's right: I just did my share of this year's cleaning at home. While I was cleaning out the bins of paperwork we have for each of our school-age children, I got a good idea for you.

It occurred to me that you might benefit from doing some spring cleaning around your office. No, I'm not trying to suggest that you need to dust your desk. What I have in mind is doing some cleaning and organizing in some parts of your business that affect employee performance.

Your Foundation When was the last time you reviewed your work standards? Are you sure that all your policies and procedures are up to date? This is a great time to pull out your written work standards or your policies and procedures manual to check it for currency. Are all the items still pertinent to the business or do some need to be removed? Have you added any policies or procedures since the last time your manuals were updated?

Recruiting and Hiring The first place that comes to mind in this part of your business is all those old applications from people you didn't hire for one reason or another. While it's important to keep them as business records, they could be an overlooked gold mine. Chances are those files include many good people. Perhaps you took a pass on someone because you found a candidate with just a little more experience. Or maybe someone you would have hired decided to take a different job instead of yours.

This would be a great time to sift through those applications and make a list of the best ones. You can use this list for recruiting. Even if someone is now working for a competitor, you could call to say that you'd be open to talking if they ever consider changing jobs again. Staying in touch with former candidates like this is one part of an effective proactive recruiting plan.

New Employee Orientation Pull out a copy of your current outline for new employee orientations. If a review of your policies and procedures turned up any needed changes, you'll want to make sure they are reflected in your new employee orientation plan.

Training You have a file that includes information on every employee's training, right? Now is the time to pull this out and make sure it's current. Also make sure that all your current employees are included. Do you need to remove data on any employees that have left the company since the last time the file was updated? Have you hired anyone new who is not shown in the file? Make sure this information is current and complete.

Spring cleaning is necessary for two reasons. First, it takes care of the deep cleaning that most of us can only do occasionally because we're too busy to do it more often. More importantly, it sets us up to enjoy the next several months in comfort. Spring cleaning in your business has the same purpose: it will help keep you on track for having a high-performance year.

return to top