Without your employees, how would your company survive? If you have hired people to work for you, then the likelihood is that you need them to keep the company moving forward. Therefore, it is imperative that you, as their boss, keep your employees motivated and happy to work for you. The happier they are and the keener they are to do a good job, the better your business will become.
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As well as this, if your employees are able to work hard without the need to keep coming to you for advice and support, you will have the opportunity to work on the business and build it up more quickly without being distracted or having to keep doing other people’s jobs. Here are some useful tips on how to keep your employees motivated so that your business can truly benefit.
1. Offer Support
The best employees are the ones who can be left to their own devices and simply do their work in a productive, successful way, but there will be times when even the best of workers will need a little extra support. When this happens, you need to be there for them, and let them know in advance that you will be. Being empathetic to any problems that your employees may have will ensure that they always feel comfortable in coming to you if they need to and that, in turn, will keep them motivated. They may not always need to ask your advice or need to talk to you about what is on their mind, but knowing that they can if they need to is a relief and one that will keep them working well.
2. Give Them Power
As well as knowing when to step in to help if your employees have a problem, it is also the job of a good boss to step away and leave those same employees to their own ways of working, trusting that they will do the right thing and complete the task at hand satisfactorily. By trusting your employees and not micro-managing them, they will feel much more valued and appreciated, and that will make them a lot more willing to do their best work for you and for the company where they know they are treated with respect.
3. Offer A Positive Working Environment
Let your employees enjoy their workspace and feel comfortable thereby displaying photographs or other personal items, and let them use their own methods for working where possible, and the results will be impressive. The more positive and happier a workplace can be, the better your employees will work and the happier they will be to be there each day.
As well as allowing personal items (to an extent), the office space should be clean and tidy. If it is kept well, it will be more pleasurable to work in, but it will also encourage your workers to look after their own particular areas, and keep them looking good too. There should also ideally be a comfortable break room so that people can get away from their desks every now and then. Ergonomic office furniture, snacks, and drinks, perhaps even free lunches, a more relaxed dress code, and possibly having an extra vacation day on their birthdays will all help to keep your employees motivated.
4. Give Training
Although the point of hiring specific people was of their skills, that doesn’t mean that every person is able to do everything around the office, and it doesn’t mean that those skills that they do already have don’t need refreshing from time to time. Offering your staff training will show that you care about them and their future, and it will also help you to keep the company running smoothly. It is important that you offer the right kind of training, however, and to do this you need to interact with your employees and notice what jobs they are doing that training would be useful for.
Speaking to your employees and finding out if there are any other skills that they would like to learn that you can make use of is also important. By having your workers learn new skills, you can then delegate some of your workload to them, freeing you up to work on other elements of the business. It is important not to force anyone to do anything they are not comfortable with, however, and if there is a job that you want to delegate that no one is interested in, such as accounting, outsourcing will be a better method, and you can learn more here. You will still have your time freed up, and your employees won’t feel as though you are asking too much of them.
5. Pay Them Properly
Paying your employees properly is all-important. If you pay them too little, they simply won’t feel appreciated or motivated to do a great job. They will do their hours and nothing more, and they won’t go above and beyond what is expected of them. If you are finding it hard to offer a good salary to an employee, then it could be that it is just too early to hire anyone, and outsourcing might be your best option again. This way, you only pay for what you need to be done, and you can choose how much is outsourced.
If you do think that you want to hire someone, make sure you check that you will be able to pay them on time every time and that it won’t leave you short in other areas of the business. Rushing into employing people can be a significant problem in business, and can even lead to failure in some cases.
6. Give Rewards
If your employees know that they will receive some kind of a reward for working hard, they are more likely to do so. What these rewards are is down to you to decide, and they can be anything from a monetary bonus to an additional vacation day or a gift card for their favorite store. Praise is also important, and can be a more motivational factor than anything tangible would be. It is essential that you ensure your employee knows that they did a good job and that you are pleased with them.
