Some companies are structured in a way that make it difficult to keep good employees - maybe because of low wages or less than favorable working conditions.

But whether a company is great or less than great, ultimately, employee retention comes down to building a team. It comes down to good leadership.

When you have to bootstrap aggressively, and it affects your employees, the key is communication. You have to be up front with them about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. And if you have strong leadership, you can build an environment where the people there care most about the other people there. They’ll pull together and help you make the changes happen.

The kind of problem you’re having really comes down to management and “changing the culture”. When it comes to supplying the supplies your team needs, some of them will be very responsible and others will leave stuff around, lose it, take it home and forget it … the more people you have, the bigger a problem it can be.

And I know, the costs can add up. Here are a few things I usually implement:

1. Communicate with your employees and make a list of equipment that each station or person requires. Provide them with a full set of equipment and make sure they understand that it’s theirs and they need to manage it. You want to get your people to start taking ownership of their tasks and responsibility for this stuff.

2. General work supplies should only be accessible by your supervisors. Make it their job to dispense equipment as needed and track who always needs more of what. You need to talk to “problem” people who are always losing their stuff.

3. Make sure that each person knows where they are supposed to store their equipment. When they’re done with something - it has to go back where it came from - immediately. no excuses. That’s very important for keeping a shop organized.

It really comes down to building an organizational hierarchy (managers > supervisors > workers), and creating a good culture where people are taking responsibility. And if you’ve got some real bad apples in the bunch who just won’t get with the program … you gotta cut them loose.

Hope that helps.

I am looking for any ideas on Manageing a Central Stores unit in a medium to large company. The past 10 years supply rooms have been unlocked and is becomeing a huge cost. This is an Automotive Company, the workers use everything from safety glasses to work gloves to crowbars. I want to regulate the amount of supplies used to save the company $$. Any feed back would be much
appreciated.

Yeah, I’ve done quite a few of them and know people who have done some of them. They work, and the more you practice them the more they just become automatic.

Also, work from home!

-Gregg