As a business owner, it is essential that you run a business where everyone feels happy, valued, and ready to contribute their time and effort to your company. If you come across as a mean and unfair manager, then it is likely that their willingness to go the extra mile for the company will diminish, ultimately affecting your bottom line. In order to make sure that everyone in your company wants to be the best version of themselves, this guide has been created to inspire you as either an HR manager or CEO!
Pay on Time
This point cannot be stressed enough. If your business finds itself constantly late on monthly or bi-weekly payments towards employees, then it may simply be a better idea not to run as a business at all. People rely on monthly payments in order to pay their rent, mortgage, credit bills, and other outgoings on time, so if your business is even a week late, it can have disastrous consequences, especially when you consider that 40% of Americans are just one paycheck away from poverty. Additionally, try and think of fun ways to top up your employees financially in the form of stock options, cryptocurrencies, and bonuses.
Respect Boundaries Between Work and Life
Employees can have a hard time respecting a manager who sends them emails at strange times of the day or constantly requests them to work weekends. While there are some industries that require a higher level of commitment and longer working hours, especially in the face of impending deadlines — such as the events industry — it’s better to establish a workflow that allows as many deliverables as possible to be committed to and achieved within reasonable working hours.
Pick a Great Pension Plan
Make your employees realize you truly care by committing to a great pension plan that sets them up for life after retirement. As an employer, you have a lot of flexibility when it comes to working with a pension provider and making extra pension payments in order to help your employees have the best pension plan possible. If you are unsure how to go about providing your employees with pensions, Procentia have a great plan that can really make the most of it.
Court Feedback
Feedback is essential if you want to make your business a success. With good feedback, you can take constructive criticism on board and find a way to implement it into your business. This is especially important when it comes to your employees, as by asking them what they think about how the business is running, they will feel like a part of the decision-making team, inspiring them to be the best version of themselves. This applies all the way from a lowly-intern to your COO or CFO.
There are a variety of ways to get people on board with feedback: you can either leave an anonymous dropbox, offer the ability to answer questions online, or simply schedule one-on-one meetings with people in your team. The only part to be careful of is courting advice a bit too often, as this can make you look a bit indecisive as a leader and cause your employees not to take you seriously!
Organize Great Team Events
Team events are not only a great bonding exercise, but they signal to your employees that you really care about their well-being and want to do something fun with them. There are a variety of different events that you can plan for your team, including:
- Trivia night
- Boardgame tournament
- Cooking class
- Sailing trip
- Paintball
- Karaoke
- Bonding Exercises
The important part to consider here is to make these team events genuinely fun. If they are too geared towards improving company relationships, then some of the more cynical members of the company may treat it like extended work. By focusing on creating genuine bonds through play, then this will help to benefit your business far more in the long run. Also, make sure that you include the shyer members of your team, so they feel like they are being included.
If you do end up taking your employees to a bar or restaurant, a great way to show you care about them and have their back is to pay for all the food and drinks. It’s a small gesture, but employees can get rather resentful if they have to pay their own way at work events, giving off the impression that you are stingy.