One integral part of succeeding in business is productivity. It hastens business processes, operations, and client satisfaction. Aside from the grit required to succeed, you’re relying on your team—your employees—to be as productive as they can be as they work alongside you.
As someone leading a team of people a business relies on, what can you do to empower your employees to be their best?
Here are some ways to give them the motivation:
1. Consider company culture when hiring people.
A company’s culture has goals, expectations, ethics, and values as the main aspects. These aspects contribute to define the environment your current employees work in and will be the area for your new team members.
It’s important to make a clear portrayal of your company’s culture to potential hires. This will help both you and the candidate to assess whether they fit with your company’s culture.
Hiring employees who mesh well with the current working environment helps increase their and their teammates’ productivity. They’ll be able to communicate effectively and are more likely to stay working with your company longer.
2. Make communication as precise as possible.
Communication is an essential part of anything that is worked on by more than a single person. Good communication encourages strong working relationships that make for excellent working environments.
Good communication prevents conflict, increases engagement, and allows you to build better relationships with third-party stakeholders.
As an employer, it’s important that you strongly encourage open communication at every level. Encourage them to ask questions, share opinions, provide positive reinforcement, and many others.
The poor communication flow between and among you and your team can lead to confusion and lack of accountability in the workplace.
3. Empower your team.
As someone they look to for better judgment, you must keep them motivated and aware of their own capabilities as individuals. ;
A good working environment equates to assigning tasks to the right people, giving them the amount of responsibility you trust they can handle, and making them aware of it.
Empowering your employees don’t only mean you should praise them for accomplishing tasks, but it means fostering a belief in their abilities through delegating bigger responsibilities.
Bigger responsibilities will make your employees improve themselves to accommodate the tasks, but that doesn’t mean you should do this to each of them. Make sure both you and your employees are aware of limitations.
4. Develop your people.
Your employees are the backbone of your business. In a business that runs big enough, it’s essential to have a team of more than two people getting things done.
No matter how many people you employ, what you should keep in mind is that taking them in means also being partly responsible for their development as professionals and regular people.
Keep them improving through training, seminars, and open discussions. Allowing them to speak up also gives them enough confidence to share what they know and think is the best for your company.
You never know what good ideas they have if you don’t let them talk.
5. Make their well-being a priority.
Of course, you’d want your business to succeed with their help, but you should also keep in mind that they’re humans who need a break.
Giving them enough time for themselves and not putting too much responsibility on their backs, which forces them to work beyond intended hours, won’t help them.
It might be good for your company’s productivity, but overworking can lead to them resigning, or worse, getting sick.
An employer without regard for their employees’ health can’t rely on employees that come and go due to lack of personal time.
To keep your company free of toxic elements, make sure you encourage your team to only work when they have to and spend time to take care of themselves and their loved ones.
6. Be realistic with your goals.
It’s wonderful to envision success as a company. That success will happen with your employees’ help, but if you set goals that aren’t achievable in your given time frame or situation, it could lead to them working at unhealthy lengths or leaving.
Before you hire new employees, make sure you’re clear about the company’s vision and what you expect of them. It might take a lot of time to screen candidates, but you can use automated recruitment tools to make the process more efficient and not waste anyone’s time.
A precise list of expectations from your company and candidates will help your human resources department fast-track applications and end up with candidates that are more in tune with what you’re looking for.
