Millions upon millions of dollars are being wasted year after year amongst businesses across the United States. Chief Executive Officers, Chief Operating Officers and people in similar positions are sitting behind their desks implementing company policies that they feel are fair and will increase their business productivity. But what about the actual employees of the business? The Undercover Boss is a new reality show that premiered right after the superbowl last night, examining this.

The Undercover Boss sends people in high-end corporate positions, such as CEO or COO, to work undercover with the employees of their business. While it was an interesting premier last night, this article is not a review of a reality television show. Instead, I’d like to emphasize the lesson learned in this reality show and how you can implement these concepts into your business module to increase productivity and employee morale.

Lesson for the Week

When creating company policies, don’t only think about what’s best for you, and others in similar high-end positions in your business. You need to think about the people who are going to actually have to follow and work around these new policies. You could take a survey to see what your employees think of a new policy. Bring in an employee or a few employees to get their opinion on the policy. My main point is, policies are made to be followed. If the people who have to follow them don’t like the policies, they won’t be happy, which will lead to employee morale issues. Employee morale issues lead to decreased productivity. It’s a chain reaction that will only hurt you, so it’s important to make sure your employees are happy with any policies or rules in order to keep a good productivity level.

Similar to how other domaining blogs have weekly comics, I’ve decided to publish a different lesson or tip every Monday, throughout the Undercover Boss season. I think this show can teach domainers and business owners a lot about how to run a business well. Even for domainers like myself who don’t own a big company with a bunch of employees, lessons and tips like these can be helpful in a modified way. I hope you enjoyed this week’s tip. Stay tuned for more articles this week as well as the next week’s Back to Work lesson. I’d also love to hear what you think about this week’s lesson, and how you enjoyed the show if you got the chance to watch it.

On a side note, congratulations to all Saints fans.