While many businesses run regular compliance audits as an essential tool for quality control, employees may see the process as no more than an administrative inconvenience. They don’t realize how audits benefit them by improving work safety, increasing efficiencies, and maintaining the standards customers expect.
However, your teams and your business will benefit from getting everyone to buy into in-store audits. All staff members should understand what you’re auditing and why with a clear connection between audit items and the company’s mission and standards. Easy access to audit results effectively and efficiently communicate to all team members: how their store is performing, where they can improve, and where they excel.
With your whole staff on board, audits become a tool for excellence and growth:
- Employee ownership increases, driving improved business results.
- Staff understand company-wide priorities and focus their attention more effectively.
- Transparency and accountability ensure compliance issues are fixed fast.
- Everyone participates in problem-solving.
- Audits drive motivation, recognition, and pride in the company.
Increase Employee Ownership and Boost Profits
According to Gallup research, “10% improvement in employees’ connection with the mission or purpose of their organization leads to an 8.1% decrease in turnover and a 4.4% increase in profitability.” When your team participates in audits, they understand how their work contributes to the company’s mission, nurturing their personal investment in the business.
As they track audit results, collaborate to close compliance gaps, and recognize their accomplishments, every staff member takes more ownership of their work. As their loyalty and employee satisfaction increase, a positive correlation to benefits customer satisfaction and profits can be observed.
Refocus Staff Time and Attention Most Effectively
When staff members understand the thought processes behind audit specific standards, they have a better sense of what’s most important to the business. They’ll align their business working hours more effectively to company goals. Currently, many companies are getting by with a leaner team because of labor shortages, audit communication will help guide the teams on which tasks are essential maximizing efficiencies.
Audit results also help managers coach individuals or groups toward improved performance. Team leaders use the data to uncover why some staff are struggling and help them set plans for refining their skills. With coaching based on objective audit numbers, employees are more likely to accept constructive criticism and work toward a better score. As they improve, the audits measure their accomplishments and motivate ongoing growth.
Use Audit Transparency to Fix Compliance Gaps Fast
The first step in solving any problem is identifying it. With regular audits, managers can catch problems quickly. In addition, they can look at scores over time and spot growing non-compliance trends before they cause problems. Audits provide insight into individual stores and across all locations, so managers can determine the best steps to remediation. For example, a problem in one store might be fixed by additional coaching. A problem across all locations may require managers to implement new operating procedures.
Audits provide the information that highlights problems, defines them, and points to the most efficient solutions. And when the whole team understands their role in improving performance, they’re more likely to hold themselves and their colleagues accountable. Plus, audits measure progress so you have instant feedback about how effective remediation has been.
Draw on Staff Ingenuity to Solve Problems
When your team takes a larger share of ownership and accountability in your business, they begin to contribute to solving problems and devising better ways to carry out the company mission. Employees have an intuitive sense of what customers really love about your stores and what could be improved. They see the little inefficiencies that waste time and money. And they’re familiar with the reality and challenges of daily store operations.
An open and transparent audit process will help them act as partners in the organization; they’ll work with managers to share ideas, try out new approaches, and measure results. If one location trials a service that saves money or delights customers, you can use audits to help standardize it across the company.
Drive Motivation, Recognition, and Pride
Everyone wants to feel proud of their work and contribute to the company mission. But often, staff have little concrete evidence to measure accomplishments, which leaves managers with few options to motivate the group, especially when you’re short-handed or working hard through the busy season.
Audits, however, provide piles of data detailing not just compliance gaps but also performance wins. As audit scores rise, employees can bask in their accomplishments. Managers can set up competitions between locations or offer prizes and bonuses to teams who meet their audit goals. And staff members have the satisfaction of playing on a winning team.
Cultivate Staff Buy-In for Your In-Store Audits With MeazureUp
Despite the benefits of including staff in your audit process, if you’re still using paper forms, it’s hard to bring everyone on board. People don’t see results until days after the audit when you’ve had time to compile reports. And it’s hard to track performance over time so you can recognize and reward improvements.
A digital audit app, like MeazureUp’s AuditApp, makes it easier to get everyone involved in the program. AuditApp’s features and interface are based on years of customer feedback. It’s specially designed to help your team work together toward common goals.
- Use AuditApp on any mobile device, even if you lose the internet connection.
- Any employee can access and complete an audit report.
- Results are uploaded to the cloud and instantly available for the team to review.
- AuditApp runs customizable reports and data analytics so you can easily track real-time trends, find problems, and measure improvements.
- AuditApp shows you results by store, employee, region, or company.
- AuditApp incorporates photos, date and time stamps, and location tagging for rich, detailed audit records.
- With our unlimited user model, there’s no additional charge for your whole team to use AuditApp and help your company succeed.
Today, your staff may not appreciate the value of audits, but if they start to buy-in to your program, they can become a catalyst for improving efficiency, maintaining brand standards, and growing the business.
Try out the power of AuditApp today for free. Click here!
