If you are a small business with employees, how is the
morale amongst your staff? Do you offer an environment that energizes your
employees, or one that sucks the life out of them? Here are some ideas you can
implement to keep your employees, and your company, energized.
·
Empower
them – when you empower your staff to be independent thinkers and make
decisions, you foster an atmosphere of independence and self-confidence.
Empowered employees will better represent your company in every way. Lay the
groundwork, be sure they understand the company’s goals and vision, and then
let them go. And let them fail. If they make a mistake, counsel them on it and
move on – that’s how they learn.
·
Communicate
with them – when employees don’t have at least a foundational understanding
of what’s going on with the company, they will write their own stories. Let
them know what’s happening at the company level, with customers and potential customers,
and with the leadership. If they know, they can better support you and the organization.
·
Surround
yourself with people smarter than you – a great leader will hire people who
know more about their job than management. He or she won’t be afraid to hire
someone who might be smarter in some areas. Hire people who are the best at
what they do in every area of your company and you will see growth in every
area of your company.
·
Listen to
their ideas – they’re smarter than you, right? So listen to them. All ideas
are good ideas and listening to those from your staff may give you a new perspective.
It’s also good to provide a way for employees to share ideas anonymously, in
case you have some that prefer to help from behind the scenes while you stay in
the forefront.
·
Challenge
them – you know you work best when you are challenged, so be sure to
challenge your employees too. Stretch their talents, give them responsibility,
and make the most of the variety of skills they bring to your organization.
Find their strengths and put them to work for you.
·
Create a
learning environment – everything changes rapidly now, so be sure to
empower your staff to always be learning. Provide them opportunities, support a
flexible schedule to allow for classes, send them to seminars or invest in
online learning opportunities. Hold lunch jam sessions or host an internal wiki
so they can share what they have learned with others in the organization to
maximize your investment.
·
Be a
giving organization – what is your company doing to help your community? Provide
an environment where your organization and your individual employees can give
back to the community and it will instill a sense of pride throughout your company.
Allow employees time off to volunteer for an hour or two each month, choose a
community organization that matches your organization’s ideals and launch a
giving campaign. No matter what size business you have, you can always find
ways to give back.
·
Introduce
an 80/20 policy – allow your employees to work on company projects 80% of
the time and spend 20% of the time working on new and exciting ideas. This one
falls right in line with several other things we’ve already talked about. How
powerful would it be if 20% of your organization’s time was spent on new ideas
and better ways to do things?
·
Have fun
– I personally think this is the most important! We spend nearly 30% of our
lives at work, why in the world shouldn’t we integrate fun into it all? There
are so many ways to do this – from decorating or dressing up for different
events or holidays, to holding motivational events, to putting a game room in
your facility to offer decompression time. There is no dispute to the powerful
healing aspects of laughter. Adding opportunities to have fun throughout your
workplace will result in happier, calmer, less stressed employees and the
benefits will be infectious.
These are just some of the things you can do to keep your
staff and your organization energized. Over the coming weeks, we’ll look deeper
and provide some proven examples of some of these ideas. Help us out! Click the
comments button below to let us know some of the energizing ideas your
organization has put in place.
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Kerry Brooks is Co-owner of ProfessionalEdge Associates, offering a wide range of marketing and support services to businesses that want to increase their success, but aren't in a position to add to their staff.
Kerry Brooks is Co-owner of ProfessionalEdge Associates, offering a wide range of marketing and support services to businesses that want to increase their success, but aren't in a position to add to their staff.
