When a person seeks employment with your company, he or she is basically saying, "I want to work for your company." We could say the same applies to current employees. They promise that they will give up doing whatever they please, show up at your store, and behave the way you want them to behave, so long as you pay them in exchange. You, the employer, promise to pay them with money and the assurance that they will not be injured in the course of employment. What you have done is entered into a "behavioral rental agreement" rather than an employment agreement.

When you have multiple people running a cash register, it is inappropriate to have multiple ways of ringing up sales and giving change. There should be only one way to do these tasks. How to do each task should be written down to ensure all store employees do the tasks in the prescribed manner. Each task requires a written list of behaviors.

A job description is comprised of various responsibilities. Over a period of time, some responsibilities will be added and some will be deleted. However, the responsibilities must be broken down into specific behaviors so that people will know exactly what is expected of them.

Definitions

One of the most important skills a manager must develop is the ability to distinguish between behaviors and responsibilities. Responsibilities are the things for which people are held accountable. Behaviors are how people go about fulfilling responsibilities. For example, suppose you say to your salespeople, "You are in charge of the security of the store when closing up at night." If this was all of the instruction you give to them, can you be certain that they know exactly how to accomplish it? Probably not. Telling salespeople that they are in charge of the security of the store is conveying their responsibility. The behaviors are the specific tasks the salespeople perform to accomplish closing the store in a secure manner. Take a look at the list of behaviors necessary for being responsible for security.

Responsibility: Security of the store when closing at night Behaviors: " Remove the cash drawer from the register, and place it on the top shelf in the safe. " Turn off all the lights in the store except the one that is taped to remain on at all times. " Verify that the back entrance is locked and bolted from the inside. " Turn the alarm on, and leave the store within 45 seconds. " Turn the key clockwise in the lock one full turn. " Remove the key. " Verify that the door is locked by shaking it twice.

Behaviors are either done correctly or incorrectly, finished or not finished. You cannot have an opinion about how well a behavior was completed. The action is either done right or wrong. You can, however, have an opinion about how well a responsibility was fulfilled.

If you ask someone to clean a particular area of the store, you may feel that it was done poorly while someone else may feel that it was done well. However, suppose you ask someone to clean some glass shelves using glass cleaner and arrange the products in straight lines that are even and at the front (as merchandise is displayed in a supermarket). Two people could not easily have differing opinions about how well this was done. The shelves were either cleaned or they weren't. The merchandise was either lined up correctly or it wasn't.

Managers have a tendency to give their staff responsibilities without explaining the specific behaviors involved. Until you have learned to explain exactly what you expect from salespeople, you're inviting disappointment. Think about the last time you asked a staff member to do something, and it was not completed to your satisfaction. How clear were your instructions? Were you specific, or did you leave room for the salesperson to interpret the task? Even though how some tasks should be done is obvious to you, it doesn't always seem obvious to others. Let's look at an example.

You receive a shipment of new merchandise that needs to be displayed and stocked. You ask two people to do the work and say the following:

"Mary and Bob, I need you to get these new items stocked in the back room and some displayed right away too. Be sure to put them near the wall display and one of each in the front window."

You leave the store and come back the next day. You find that the new items have been displayed near the wall display, but are lined up without any creativity whatsoever. Each one has been displayed in the window, but there isn't enough room for all of them, so the window now looks crammed with merchandise. You receive a report from a mystery shopping service that you use occasionally. It states that a shopper was in the store on the previous day after you left. The shopper was unable to get assistance because two employees were so busy stocking and putting out new items that they neglected to help the shopper and the four other customers that were in the store at the time as well.

Let's take a look at how you might have instructed Mary and Bob more effectively:

"Mary and Bob, I need you to get these new items out on the floor as soon as possible. Place one of each different model on the wall display just to the right of the sheet music display. Be sure to give the display some height since that wall is so bare in back. We also need to put samples of each in the front window display. I know they probably won't all fit, so take out products A and B and put them back into stock. Then go ahead and put the rest of the stock in the stock room if you have time. I expect it will be busy today with that ad we've got running. We can always get them stocked in the back later, but we can't always get the customers later, so remember the customer is always your first priority."

The likelihood of having the job performed the way you want will be much greater with the above instructions. Another way to ensure clear instruction is to have reference manuals with all of the necessary behaviors to complete each responsibility. In the example above, having a manual with pictures of successful displays would greatly increase the probability that displays would be completed correctly.

Salespeople can learn the behaviors necessary for them to be successful, and thereby help a store become successful. The first step in teaching salespeople how to be successful is to make sure they know how to perform the required behaviors. As a store manager, you show or tell a salesperson how to do a particular task. Then you ask if the salesperson understands.

The next step is usually missed and results in the biggest failing of retail owners and managers in developing their staffs. It is Show Me. If you show a salesperson how to open the sale more effectively, and you ask the salesperson to show you, he/she may not be able to execute your instructions at all. He/she needs more training, but if you don't say "show me," it may be too late before you find that out.

Time spent developing a job responsibility checklist, and then listing all of the behaviors you need your salespeople to be able to not only understand, but demonstrate as well, would be time well spent. This would allow you to find out what your salespeople know, and more importantly, what they don't know. Likewise, a checklist of manager's responsibilities with corresponding behaviors would be helpful to ensure that you know what is required of you as a manager.

A sample of a Job Responsibility Checklist is shown here, titled the "Salesperson's Job Responsibility Checklist." This checklist can provide a head start for you in preparing checklists specific for your store. Remember, it is your responsibility as a manager to see that your salespeople behave in a manner that will make them and your store successful.