by Tom Brialey, Managing Director of Action Storage
Keeping your staff focused on your business’s mission is much easier said than done. When you don’t own the company you’re working for, it’s often easy to feel a lack of emotional investment in the overall success of the organisation.
However, there are some simple, low-cost steps you as an owner can take to keep your team just as interested in your business as they’d be if they owned it themselves:
Enhance your office space.
Giving your employees the opportunity to have their say when it comes to office decor provides a cost-effective solution to ensuring your team are satisfied and productive in their roles. Better yet, it will give more ambitious members of your team a chance to grab your attention with a project that is relatively low-risk.
From incorporating shelving bays to organise each team member’s work station to allowing staff more say over how the office is used as a whole, give your staff a budget to work within and a few guidelines and see the sorts of creative results your team can produce!
Know what’s important to them.
Whether it’s a pay rise, some added rewards for hitting targets or the option of flexitime, each of your staff has their own unique wants and needs in terms of what they’d like to get out of working for your company. Young professionals, for example, may be purely financially motivated, whereas team members with families will be more grateful if you give them the option to arrange their hours around the demands that come with being a parent.
Some employees may even be looking to make their own financial investment in the startup, and offering these staff members an opportunity to buy their own stake in the business will give them a reason to care about the company beyond their salary alone.
Little office extras can also provide a cost-effective way of keeping your employees as invested in the success of your business as you are. Whether it’s creating a staff games room with a pool table or installing an office coffee machine to perk people up in the morning, introducing something novel to your office that’s designed to brighten up your team’s working environment is sure to make the desired impact.
Make every job feel important.
There’s a famous anecdote about a NASA janitor who once told JFK that his job involved helping to put men on the Moon. Now, while he wasn’t directly involved in the ground-breaking rocket science or solving the brain-busting equations that actually did result in mankind’s greatest adventure, he wasn’t wrong, either.
Making sure that your employees feel valued and understand the wider importance of the job they do is a morale-boosting method of keeping them emotionally invested in the success of your company.
Remind them of your mission.
From Mcdonald’s restaurants advertising how many hamburgers they’ve sold to posters plastered throughout offices featuring motivational slogans and phrases, more and more workplaces across the globe are making it their mission to remind their staff of the bigger picture – helping them to understand and contribute to the business’s overarching goals.
Regular meetings with your team designed to keep them in the loop with regards to your company objectives give them an opportunity to stay tuned on business development and become more emotionally invested in how your enterprise grows over time.
Make time for training.
Of course, it’s important to create a positive working environment for your employees but, without opportunities to learn and grow, your best and brightest team members’ ambition will drive them to leave in search of greener pastures. In order to keep them on board, present regular opportunities for them to learn and develop new skills – and show them how they can use those new capabilities to progress and grow in your company.
If your staff are experiencing a motivation shortage, there are a number of ways business owners can take their employees’ dedication to the next level. From flexible working arrangements to structured development programmes, the crucial thing to remember is that loyalty is a two-way street and any engagement efforts have to start with you.
Tom Brialey is the Managing Director of Action Storage, specialising in the manufacture, supply and installation of a wide range of shelving, lockers and racking.
