How do you set objectives and assign responsibilities to your employees?

I used to have 115 employees in my old job; now I have three. It actually makes it more complicated. There's no management structure — I'm management. As far as duties, I tried it both ways. One year I actually assigned duties to people and that didn't seem to work. So now I have an employee handbook with a list that spells out what everybody's supposed to be doing every day. The list is posted and handed out. They self-police, in that one will complain if someone else is not doing their job, and they got left holding the bag. Also, I perform the same duties I expect everyone else to do, even cleaning the bathroom and dusting. They respect you more and are more willing to hold up their end of the arrangement if you set an example.

With 35 to 50 employees, we're not a small store, but we take a small store approach to keeping the staff motivated and happy by addressing each person as an individual. My general manager oversees everyone. The billing and accounting person has her staff and my buyers are responsible for the salespeople in their departments. The shipping and display departments all have their managers. We give each employee objectives to achieve in their position. They're provided with a job description and walked through a list of their responsibilities. But by allowing them some freedom in determining their responsibilities, qualities often come forward that we might not see if we were highly regimented.

We have a merchandise manager whose only job is to restock the store and clean all the shelves. The sales staff's first job is to help customers. If they have time, there's a list of things that keeps everyone busy, including cleaning jewelry, straightening up the card section, and making sure everything is in order. We have a "store opening" list, which involves cleaning all the glass, and a "store closing" list, which involves vacuuming the entire store and cleaning the kitchen. Every two weeks we come in early for a staff meeting and we clean. The staff is very responsible, so if someone doesn't get to their task they'll tell the manager so it doesn't get overlooked.

Quite often there's overlap in responsibilities. We have two full-time people. One is gallery manager; the other does framing. Even he opens boxes, enters data, and helps customers. Two part timers mostly do paperwork. If there is an issue with anyone, we try to nip it in the bud. We'll bring it to their attention, but we make more of a point of telling them when they're doing a good job than when they're doing a bad job. We prefer to give incentives. We set goals, and if we meet them, every month or two we take the employees out to dinner. We also have a yearly review, where we talk to them about pluses and minuses. We also give them the opportunity to review us, because that's just as important in making the relationship work.