Recently I have had several conversations with small business owners who have different approaches to working with their staff. These are people I respect but don’t necessarily agree with.

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The most shocking advice received, from more than one person, was to hire employees for 89 days and then terminate their employment, avoiding the 90 day mark, where probationary employment ends, to as a management strategy. 

The menagerie of ways in which this philosophy is flawed is so beyond the scope time I could hold your attention, I am not going to refute it point-by-point, but instead offer a different way of thinking. 

The failing with many expats in Costa Rica, when it comes to managing their staff, is a lack of prior real world and book education on the business 101, subjects like: hiring the right people, communicating a clear vision for the business, gaining buy-in, and managing expectations.

I won’t spend too much time on hiring here, except to comment that I am a big fan of referrals, considering the source. A referral from your trusted attorney is probably a good bet, but from your gardener I would ask, “for what job?” 

If you are hiring a pool-cleaner, fine, but if you are hiring a cashier I would say, “thank you for the referral.” 

Could your gardener refer the best cashier to you that you have ever hired? Maybe. Your expectations will always limit your potential so hire right and hire once.

My wife and I sell pizzas, but the business is a service business, so we hire for service, not making pizzas. 

If that were enough just about anybody with one or two functioning arms could do the job. But nobody cares about what a business does in the long run, so much as, why it does what it does. 

Some pizzerias are bringing the gourmet pizza experience to Costa Rica, some are selling the Argentinian version of pizza, but why we do what we do is we want to craft high quality pizza to the people who live in and visit Tamarindo at a price they can afford. 

I don’t know that there’s anything really special about this mission, but it’s what we talk about with our staff, a touchstone we go back to for every motivation for every behavior. If something we are doing doesn’t fit into this goal then we have to stop and ask why we are doing it.

A conversation could sound like this: “[Employee]… since our goal is to provide pizzas for Tamarindo at a price that’s affordable, if we don’t pay attention to how much cheese we are putting on each pie, then putting too much on will burn through our stock too fast, driving up our costs… but if we don’t put enough, then our pies won’t be good enough for our clients.” 

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When the message is tied into the overall vision of the business, anything can have value for the team member, and if we hired right in the first place, then they will do things because they are operating on faith of the mission, not fear of my wrath.

You don’t need to look far to find examples of human and animal behavior which support this approach. Decisions made of my own volition, in support of my own benefit, are stronger decisions than the ones I make in fear of consequences.

When we make decisions about the pizzeria, we not only consult with our staff about their input, we occasionally use their opinion as a strong influence on our final decisions; not with just the little things either, like where to hang the no-smoking sign, but with the big ones too, like whether or not to get a new oven. 

At the end of the day, the final decision is ours, but the staff feels like they were part of the decision making process. This emotionally ties their self-worth to the overall value of the business, which ties their everyday actions more to the impact it may have on the overall business. 

The decisions of your employees, the value they place on their role in the business and the value they place on the mission, all become most critical when you are not present. 

Integrity is not measured by what they do when the boss is there but more when she is not. When I waited tables for a small restaurant in LA, I knew having a glass of wine at the end of my shift was fine every once and awhile. 

The owner needn’t come right out and invite me, but he also didn’t need to tell me walking out with a full bottle of wine would be unacceptable, grounds for termination. But the grey area in between was the sticky ground I too often tread, the place where employers lose faith in the integrity of their staff, and where tough conversations are born. 

That sticky area was the second glass of wine I would have, the almost nightly ritual of enjoying a crisp glass of white, and the slice of dessert all the servers would share from time-to-time. Would we have been fired if the owner found out? Probably not, but he would have lost trust in us for sure, and he might have written us up. 

Set clear expectations for your staff, and no matter how much you trust them, or who referred them to you, know that employees in any country, in any place, are going to skim from the top. 

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We don’t encourage them to do so but we check for it, and if we do see the proverbial bottle of wine walking out the door, then we respond appropriately. 

The other thing we do is let them know we are checking, by tracking inventory, and by installing a security system, not with the intention of catching them, but to keep us all honest. 

One shift counts out the drawer, inventory and the next one counts the two back in, and inventory is matched against sales.

Libraries have been filled with the books on this subject, but in general a positive environment where everyone works together is not just something that works in developed countries, it works here too. 

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If you expect and treat your staff like thieves, if you emasculate them, talk down to them, and make known your poor expectations of them, then what reason have you given them to show you differently? 

Give anybody a reason to hate you or your business, because they feel disrespected or uninvolved (undervalued) and you will find out just what anybody is capable of when they have nothing to lose. 

Inspire them to be part of something bigger and they may just surprise you.

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Written by VIP Member Damon Mitchell who spent over 10 years in the fitness industry before he moved to Costa Rica in search of a better work/life balance. Currently he lives in Playa Tamarindo in Guanacaste, where he and his wife Cristina are owner-operators of Pizza&Co pizza express, located in Plaza Conchal 2.

Daily, Damon runs on the beach or works out at Tamarindo Fitness Center, keeping fit by doing a combination of old-school weight lifting, calisthenics, TRX, stability ball work and just about anything he can do to create new and fun exercises. Most recently he is learning to surf.
You can email Damon here if there is anything specific about staying fit and healthy in Costa Rica you would like him to cover in his next article.

Expat Business 101: Managing your Costa Rican staff

Article/Property ID Number 4546

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