Having A Code Of Conduct Is Essential To Business Planning
One of our clients John, an expert in the heavy vehicle service industry, struggled to come up with a Code of Conduct for his technicians and on one attempt borrowed a 30-page code from a 1,400 employee abattoir as his starting point. Reading the original, I bet it would have been a complete mystery to its intended audience of meat workers, and was no clearer to my technically-gifted client!
To push the process back to a simpler base, I emailed John a copy of Robert Fulgum’s Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, and suggested he work from there. What he came up with was simple, straight forward, and perfect for his situation and audience. It went like this:
As professionals at XYZ Truck Repairs we use the following guidelines:
- We turn up at work 10 minutes before our start time to discuss & plan the day ahead.
- We dress in our uniforms every day to look neat & tidy.
- We respect each other’s property & when we borrow tools we return them clean & undamaged. This includes John’s & Company tools and vehicles.
- We clean up our own mess & help others to do the same to keep the place neat & tidy.
- We are honest & fair with each other & everyone that we associate with.
- We own up to our mistakes, learn from them & help to fix them.
- We don’t bring our pets to work.
- We treat our customers with respect & offer them as much help as possible, and we strive always to be seen by them as true professionals.
- We do excellent work & look after our customers’ vehicles in the way that we would want others to look after our own.
- We don’t operate equipment unless we are licensed.
- We don’t mess around in working hours. We don’t throw or spit or yell or hit people like school kids. We are professionals & act as such.
- If we hurt someone we say sorry & help them out – and we report any injuries so that everyone is protected.
- We finish what we start. If we can’t, we arrange for one of our workmates to complete the job, after telling them where we are up to.
- We look out for our mates.
- We enjoy what we do.
- We stamp our work with Excellence! (Because it rubs off on us!)
What more can I say except, how’s your Team Charter looking?
For more information see this article
