When an employee reports a problem, I want to know what happens next.
Who receives it? Who decides what to do? Who can authorize the expense? When does someone check whether the action worked?
A business can have a reliable reporting process and an unreliable resolution process. Employees submit tickets, managers receive emails, and meetings include updates. Yet the same problems keep appearing.
The missing step is often clear responsibility for getting the issue to a verified conclusion.
Reporting Is the Beginning
Imagine a hypothetical customer-service employee reporting that invoices repeatedly contain the wrong delivery charge.
The employee sends the examples to a supervisor. The supervisor forwards them to accounting. Accounting corrects the affected invoices.
Those customers may have received a resolution. But if the underlying pricing setting remains wrong, the next invoices will create the same problem.
I would want the company to distinguish between correcting the immediate transaction and fixing what produced the error.
Both matter. They may require different people and different actions.
Give the Issue One Accountable Owner
Several departments may need to participate in a solution. One person should remain accountable for coordinating it.
That person doesn't have to do every task. They need to know what remains open, who is doing the work, and when to escalate a delay.
“Accounting is looking at it” gives me less confidence than:
“Maria owns the issue. Operations will confirm the delivery rules, accounting will correct the affected invoices, and the system administrator will update the pricing settings by Thursday.”
The second explanation makes the work reviewable. It also makes it easier to identify where progress has stopped.
Responsibility Needs Authority
Assigning a person to an issue does little if they cannot make the necessary decisions.
Can they authorize a refund? Change a setting? Stop a shipment? Bring in a vendor? Approve a repair?
If approval must come from someone else, that path should be clear.
Otherwise, the employee has to keep asking permission while everyone assumes the issue is being handled.
As an owner, I would examine which decisions genuinely require my involvement. Routine problems should have defined limits within which employees can act. Larger or unusual decisions should have an escalation route.
The goal is to give people enough authority to carry out their responsibility while keeping appropriate oversight.
Define What “Resolved” Means
An issue should have a completion condition before it is marked closed.
For the invoice example, that could mean:
Affected customers received corrected invoices.
The pricing setting was updated.
A sample of new invoices showed the correct charge.
The relevant employees understood the change.
An email saying “done” does not establish all of those things.
The completion standard should fit the problem. A minor billing error needs a different level of verification than a recurring equipment failure or a safety concern. But each needs some evidence that the intended result occurred.
Escalate Based on Consequences
I would give the team a way to identify issues that cannot wait for the next meeting.
An issue affecting safety, payroll, customer access, or a major delivery commitment may require immediate attention. Routine improvements can follow a different timetable.
Employees should understand both the priority and the escalation trigger. For example: if the assigned owner cannot meet the deadline, or the problem affects additional customers, who needs to know?
A deadline that passes quietly is a weak control. A deadline with a defined response gives management a chance to intervene.
Look at What Keeps Coming Back
The number of closed tickets can be a useful activity measure. I would also want to see how many issues were reopened and which problems keep recurring.
Repeated corrections may indicate that the company is treating symptoms while leaving the root cause unaddressed.
Reviewing those patterns can reveal unclear procedures, inconsistent training, unsuitable systems, or decisions that nobody has authority to make.
It can also reveal a capacity problem: the responsible person may know what to do but lack the time or resources to complete it.
Those findings require management decisions, not another reminder to “follow up.”
Make Reporting Worth the Employee’s Effort
Employees need to see that reporting produces a response.
That does not mean every suggestion must be adopted or every issue fixed immediately. It means the company acknowledges the concern, explains the decision, and communicates what happened.
If an issue is deferred, give it a reason and a review date. If the concern was mistaken, explain what was checked. If the solution worked, let the person who raised the issue know.
I want problems reported early. For that to happen consistently, people need confidence that someone will take responsibility for the next step.
A useful management review follows the issue all the way through: from the person who noticed it, to the decision, to the action, to evidence that the result holds.
I work with business owners on operating processes, accountability, and management decisions that affect performance. Learn more about my advisory work at RobertRitch.com.
Sources
This article presents Robert Ritch’s management analysis and recommendations. The invoice scenario is hypothetical.
my personal favorite of your articles so far!