Are you giving your employees everything they need to thrive in your business? It is in your best interest as a business owner to build a solid workforce, provide them with the tools and tech they need to achieve maximum levels of productivity and ensure that they feel appreciated. If you do this, the team will work together to guarantee your business is a huge success. But we’ve jumping ahead of ourselves a little here. Before we think about what a great team could mean for your business, we need to think about how to build it from day one.
That First Hire
Every business or section of a company starts off with one or two primary hires. These hires could fill absolutely any position in your company that you feel is needed to expand. For instance, you might be setting up a marketing team and for that one of the first hires might be a content executive. When you fill that position, you need to make sure you’re getting the best person for the job. Resist the temptation of hiring someone that might be cheaper because they don’t have as many skills as an individual that will be after a higher pay grade. Ultimately, the person that costs more could be exactly what your business needs to improve.
To get the best workers in your business, you should be thinking about using a recruitment agency. You can think of recruitment agencies as gatekeepers to the job market. Behind their gates, they have some of the best talent on the market. Can you really afford not to hire some of the top individuals? If not, it is worth paying the price and gaining access to these players.
Building The Team
Once you have that first hire, you have started to build the team. It’s important that you think carefully about the traits you need in this team. Reports have shown that gender balanced teams are more effective and productive compared with companies that favor men or women. This goes all the way to the boardroom where more successful companies are run by boards that are only fifty percent male. The same is true for diversity. Diverse companies are 47 percent more likely to succeed in a business world that has essentially become one massive melting pot.
Essentially then, you should be working to set yourself up as an equal opportunities employer. Make sure that you are open to hiring people with different belief systems and ideologies. Ultimately, these new ideas are exactly what your business needs if it’s going to move forward.
Of course, it’s not just about hiring a diverse workforce. You need to think about putting experience in the room too. As such, you may want to hire workers who perhaps have had a lot of experience working in other companies at similar positions. Or, you could always hire consultants. Experts in their field, consultants, will help ensure that certain sections of your business are on the right track and primed for success.
Staying Connected
If your workforce is going to be effective, you need to make sure that everyone is on the same page and essentially, feels connected. This might be harder than it sounds with the typical modern business model. In a modern business, you might have people working in different areas and locations. Some of your staff might spend a lot of the week working from home. Others will be confined to the office, and many more might be out in the field. Flexibility in business is good because it keeps things efficient and easy, but it can put strains on business relations.
That’s why you might want to think about in an employment engagement system. For instance, the employee engagement platform Peakon offer is great because it’s based on the idea of providing employees with the same fantastic work experience as clients. Things are easy for them because they can access everything they need from the platform provided. As well as this, people can stay connected, and this allows the workforce to feel like a team even if they are separated.
You may also want to think about arranging out of work activities for your team and your workforce. For instance, you can arrange team building exercises. There are two advantages to this. First, it will help them learn and utilize skills that could ultimately benefit your business. Second, and perhaps more importantly, it will make them feel like your company is more than just a business. It’s a family, and due to this, you will have their loyalty as well as their respect. Ultimately, that means that they’re not going to be looking at other opportunities and will be eager to stay with a business that appreciates them.
Comfortable?
Don’t get the wrong idea here, we’re not suggesting that employees should be laying back on recliner seats. Let’s look at the typical office setups. There will be desks, swivel chairs, and computers. Your employees are probably going to spend a vast amount of their time through the day staring at a computer screen. So, if you want them to be efficient and productive, you do want to keep them comfortable. That’s why you should invest in chairs that offer good back support and maybe tables that allow seated and standing positions while working.
You can also look at ideas from more innovative offices. For instance, if you manage to get a tour around a Google office, you’ll see that they essentially have play areas and they are not the only ones. Disney Imagineer offices have similar setups as do movie studios. The idea behind these areas is a simple one. It stimulates the imagination and thus improves creativity. So, you can see how it could be beneficial to marketing firms and plenty of other industries.
At the very least, you should consider setting your office up in a way that encourages interactivity and group work. Obviously, you’ll still need areas for solo work, but you should avoid the idea of having cubicles in your office. A set up like this will stifle the abilities of workers and make them hate coming in each day.
Think About Design? If we’re looking at the office, you should think about the design as well, rather than just the layout. Your office shouldn’t look like a dull and dreary place to work. If it looks dull and dreary, that’s going to reflect in the output that your workers deliver. Instead, you should think about brightly colored walls and perhaps even invest in some modern art. Certain vibrant colors encourage creativity, and they might even boost the mood of some of your employees. No one wants to be stuck in an office where everyone is miserable. It’s not good for the health, and it certainly won’t be good for your business.
Appreciating The Team
There are so many businesses these days that don’t appreciate their workforce. First, they hire them on freelance contracts, and this allows them to avoid the responsibility that employers typically have for employees. For instance, they don’t have to offer them sick leave pay, holiday pay or even a pension plan. It’s clever and a loophole that will no doubt be filled at some point in the future. However, for your business, you may want to avoid this type of practice and others like it. While it might save you money, ultimately it’s going to leave your employees constantly searching for a better position. Due to this, you could lose a lot of talented workers.
Of course, giving them the right contract isn’t the only way to show employees that you appreciate them. You may want to think about offering them incentives for great work. Believe it or not, this could be as simple as bringing donuts in for everyone on a Friday morning. Or, simply having a casual code of dress one day a week. Anything like this might be enough to make them feel as though coming into work is worth it. It doesn’t have to be a pay increase or bonuses. It could be absolutely anything. No matter how small it might seem to you, your employees will definitely appreciate the gesture.
The Right Tech
We’ve already talked about some of the tech that can benefit your workforce and in turn your business. But it’s important to realize that tech can be more than just a way to keep workers connected. It can also be a way to make their job easier. For instance, you may be disappointed in the level of output that your employees are delivering. But this might be because they are working on outdated, awful tech. Essentially, you reap what you sow, and if you’re not providing employees with the right tools, you can’t expect them to be productive.
As you can see then, there are a lot of considerations to make when you are priming your workforce for success. However, it is worth paying attention to the wants and needs of your employees because ultimately, they will determine just how high your business will soar.
