By: Jeremy Bowersox '01
President/Owner Grove-Bowersox Funeral Home, Inc.
John L. Grove College of Business - General Management
The biggest challenge of running any business is employee management. Each employee has their own strengths and their own weaknesses, myself included. The challenge of being a business owner is managing those strengths into a productive team of employees who can produce quality work, without the need to be under constant supervision.
I expect my employees to be honest about their strengths and forthcoming with their weaknesses, allowing me to mold the staff into a team. The result being that they learn to depend on each other and become stronger as a whole. As an owner, I feel the same should be expected of me. I enjoy turning some responsibilities over to employees when their natural talents allow them to complete the task in a more efficient manner than I could perform it myself. The added responsibility adds to employee satisfaction and value to the team environment.
The benefit of freedom of thought in the workplace is that we become much more efficient. Rather than telling the employees how to do something, I prefer to explain what needs to be accomplished and allow them to figure out how. There are times when supervision in needed. At those times, it is my duty to step in and add guidance as necessary. Encouraging them to find a solution adds to employee satisfaction.
Every employee will bring with them their own unique character and abilities to the workplace. Effectively managing individual employees into a team workforce allows for a higher quality of work and higher employee satisfaction.
