Keeping reliable staff onboard is always preferable to recruiting constant replacements, so it’s important to ensure job satisfaction remains high across your business
Employees are the heart of every business. No business can grow if it doesn’t have a solid team behind it, and that’s why it’s important to make sure that your staff feel like the valued team members that they are.
It’s the role of any business owner to not only hire the right employees, but to keep them on board. There are certain boxes you need to tick in order to ensure that your employee feel valued.
Fair wages
This is the most fundamental aspect of any employer–employee relationship. Transparency and fairness are essential when it comes to wages, and it’s all too easy for any unaddressed issues regarding raises and wages to become the catalyst for an employee leaving their post.
Your team members are providing value to your company by working hard, completing tasks and producing results, which allows your business to grow. In turn, you should provide them with pay that reflects their role, and allow this pay to grow steadily with both your business and their responsibilities.
Organised management
Employees want a role that is well defined, as this lets them know what is expected of them and what they should be trying to accomplish. This doesn’t equate to micromanagement, but it does mean offering clear and simple instructions, leaving room for any questions, and providing focus.
Make sure you know exactly what goals you want to gain from every role in your business, because if you don’t know, chances are the person who’s actually doing the job doesn’t know either.
Listening
Listening is incredibly important when it comes to reducing employee turnover. If an employee reaches out to their employer – whether via text, email, call or in person – it is imperative that said employer gives them their undivided attention. Empathy is key here, so be sure to put yourself in their shoes. From your perspective, their issue may not seem like a big deal, but if you don’t listen effectively, they likely won’t feel supported or understood. Take the time to work with them in order to find a solution to their cause for concern.
Mutual respect
Losing your temper, putting employees down or ridiculing them displays a clear lack of respect, which can cause them to look for another work environment elsewhere. Even when employees make mistakes, it’s important to address these errors with them collaboratively, in a way that’s both respectful and constructive. Show them where they went wrong and tell them how to do better in future, offering clear instructions and gentle but transparent corrections.
Remember, the relationship between an employer and an employee is mutual; if you don’t respect them, chances are they don’t respect you.
Flexibility
While listening, organisation and clarity are all key to a strong employee relationship, it’s all important to give your team members some space to get on with their tasks in peace. Flexibility and freedom allow your staff to get through their to-do lists in their own way, without their superior micromanaging them.
You can also inject flexibility into the way your business is structured overall. Offering remote working options, Bring Your Own Devices or letting team members set their own hours will help employees feel more in control of their schedule, benefiting their work-life balance. This, in turn, means they’re less likely to seek out opportunities elsewhere.
Whatever you are seeking help for, TEDCO Business Support are here to help.
The team at TEDCO Business Support has helped thousands of businesses to grow, supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), so we’re here to support you.
Get in touch today to see how we can help you. Give us a call on 0191 516 61 02 or drop us an email at hello@tedco.org.