Yeah, right. More likely, when the boss is away, employees goof off. It doesn’t have to be like this. Let me share a quick story with you.

A client of mine travels extensively. He couldn’t always do this. There was a time when he was too concerned to leave because he didn’t have a team capable of handling the business in his absence. They would goof off and do as little as possible. So he never left. And the business suffered.

So here is what I worked on to help him get out of the office and get focused on adding greater value to his business:

1. We defined the performance attributes of every job (what attributes are necessary for an employee to be successful in the job). This gave us a clear picture of which jobs had people who were a good fit, and those who were not adding any value. We first realigned existing staff – right people in the right jobs.

2. We then reviewed the now “open” jobs (open because we didn’t have anyone in the organization who had the right success attributes for the jobs) and sourced candidates from the large amount of unemployed talent (because of the recession). The clarity of knowing what we specifically needed, coupled with a larger job candidate supply, allowed for successful hiring. Time consuming but critical for the success of the company.

3. With the right people in the right roles, we then created clear daily performance expectations that defined what needed to be done but allowed employees to develop how to complete the work. This inspired employee ownership; they became more emotionally connected to their work and workplace. And with the right employees in the right roles, they welcomed the ability to do their work in their best way.

With the right employees in the right roles, so much more work gets done. Employees who are in roles that play to their talents, strengths and passions, feel more capable and competent. They like what they do. They feel part of a family. This kind of employees doesn’t goof off when the boss is away.

I present more of this process in the book Fire Up! Your Employees and Smoke Your Competition.