As an entrepreneur and business owner, one of your greatest assets is your employees. Without your employees, you would have to complete every business task and handle every area of your business on your own. This would not only take you ages, and thus reduce the productivity of your business, but it would also tire you out completely and would mean that you have no time to do anything other than deal with your business. To retain your employees, you need to keep your employees engaged and motivated to work. Here are a few ways in which you can do this.
Have Clear Responsibilities
Your employees need to know the tasks that they have to complete every day, every week, and even every month. This means that your employees will gain confidence in their work and will be better able to manage their time. If your employees don’t know what it is that they’re supposed to be doing every day, then they’re going to be unproductive, and then lose confidence in themselves and their work. Let your employees know from their first day all of the tasks that they need to complete, and that you’re always there to help if they need it.
Set Clear Goals
Everyone needs something to work towards; The last thing you want is your employees’ productivity slipping because they don’t think the jobs that they’re completing matters in the bigger picture. You need them to know that, while a single sale every hour or so might not seem like a lot, or a few shares on a business Facebook post might not seem like it matters, it all adds up and will help you to reach your goals.
Give Them What They Need
Often, if an employee is under-performing, they are labelled as lazy or not hardworking enough. Of course, this might be the case for some employees, but for most, if an employee isn’t performing as well as others, it’s because something is wrong. The last thing that you want is for you or your business to be what is wrong, so make sure that your employees have everything that they need so that they can work their very best. This means making sure that they’ve had sufficient training, that they have all of the tools they need to complete their job, and that they have enough support from yourself and your other employees.
Don’t Use Threats
If you do have an employee that happens to be under-performing, the last thing that you want to do is try to threaten their job as a means of motivation. While this might seem like a good idea at the time, especially if you’re tired and frustrated, this is only going to encourage your employees to find new jobs, rather than work harder at the one that they’ve got. In fact, you should avoid mistreating your employees full stop. It’s not just the wrong way to go about motivating people; It’s also the wrong way to go about treating people in general.
Have Competitive Pay
As much as we all might not like to admit it, one of our biggest motivations to get out of bed in the morning and go to work is because we need money to live. It doesn’t matter how much you love your job if you need more money, and your job won’t provide it, then you’re going to start to look for somewhere else to work. That’s why benchmarking salaries is so important, as it avoids you losing your best employees to jobs with better pay and benefits, but means that you also aren’t overpaying your employees.
Offer Feedback & Encouragement
A lot of companies only offer their employees feedback every few months or more, if at all. While you may think that this saves you some time, it won’t in the long run, as it means that your employees’ wrongdoings will go unnoticed. You should offer them feedback as much as possible, especially if they’re underperforming, and let them know what they can do to improve their work. Just be sure that these feedback sessions don’t turn into you moaning about their work; You should also be praising what they’ve done right, and encouraging them to continue.
Reward Success
As well as your pay and benefits, you should also ensure that you’re rewarding your employees for hitting their targets and meeting their goals. Luckily, you don’t have to hand out masses of cash to each of your employees to help them feel valued; Simply ordering a pizza on a Friday or sending a thank you email will suffice. However, you should ensure that you’re also rewarding your top-performing staff members individually, otherwise, they’ll feel as though you value them as much as you do the staff members who don’t work as hard, and so their work might slip.Giving them a gift card or an extra holiday day are both great ways to make them feel special.
Build Your Team
If your staff members have to work as a team on a daily basis, then it’s important to encourage teamwork. Otherwise, your entire workforce could begin under-performing, because they don’t feel comfortable to ask for help from one another. A team building day is a great way to do this, and will also show that your business cares about fun and friendship just as much as it does profit and hitting targets. If you wanted to take it a step further, you could create a sports team from your employees and have them compete. This teaches your employees to trust each other, have fun, and be healthy all at the same time.
Your employees are the heart of your business, so it’s important that you take care of them and keep them as motivated as you possibly can. You don’t want to lose great assets to competitive businesses because you didn’t offer enough support or encouragement as an employer. If you want your customers to be happy, then you need to keep your employees happy, so follow these tips for a head start.
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