Owners, you have taken all the risk and stress so no wonder you feel a little frustrated sometimes that your employees don't share the same level of care about your business as you do.
However, hard truths are essential for growth and improvement. So you may need to shift your perception of your employees. Instead of considering them solely as people to get things done, the way you did them. Successful organizations understand the immense value of redefining this perspective.
Many owners even express their desire to clone themselves, believing that it would make their lives easier. However, this perspective undermines the true potential and value that employees bring to the table.
Here are just a few ways to increase the performance of your employees and get on the path to becoming a high-performance organization and maybe even relieve some of the stress and pressure on yourself.
All of these points are only applicable if you have already got the right people on the train and got the wrong ones off! (read the article here)
Acknowledge that employees ultimately care more about themselves than they do about the company. This is a GOOD thing for two reasons. First, when you allow them to take care of themselves, they reward the company with more loyalty and effort.
Second, if they see a path to advancing themselves through company growth, they will prioritize it. Let people focus on self-improvement. The only way this is bad for the company is if you hinder their growth and fail to provide a clear vision for personal and company success. Disengagement and turnover rates will then become commonplace.
When employees take care of themselves, they avoid burnout, stress, and struggle, and feel comfortable asking for help or providing recommendations.
Recognize that your employees have most of the answers to your problems. They possess extensive knowledge of your business, often surpassing your own in certain areas. Listen to them. Promote and reward their ideas.
Share profits from cost-saving initiatives put forward by employees. Constantly incentivize people to find new ways to be more efficient and deliver better service.
People crave success and recognition. Providing them with these wins costs you nothing BUT taking the win for yourself will cost you everything.
Provide them with the necessary tools for success. While employees are typically seen as a fixed expense and this is true isn't that even more reason to give them EVERY tool they need to succeed?
Offer internal and external training opportunities. Encourage cross-departmental collaboration and knowledge sharing. For instance, marketing's use of AI for content creation can benefit sales and customer service by providing better and faster responses to customers.
Equip them with dual monitors and faster computers. Ask them what else they need to facilitate their growth. Invest in their education. Ask significant questions such as: Do you feel this is the best role for you in the company? What factors are slowing us down? What changes would you make in my position?
When employees feel free to provide honest and open answers to these questions, you gain invaluable advice. If they know you prioritize the company over your ego, they will move mountains to achieve the team's goals because they are genuinely part of the team.
Keeping it all on track: While empowering employees and encouraging their input is essential, you must also establish systems to keep everything on track. Systems should guide your business and serve as a daily reference for everyone. Without systems, conflicts arise when people share ideas and advice, and the environment becomes confusing. Eventually, idea-sharing stops and the culture stagnates due to a lack of execution.
As an owner or leader, your responsibility is to constantly refine and improve these systems. This is how you keep employees engaged and driven—they must know what to do, how to do it, and why they are doing it. Just as you wouldn't play a game without rules or dictate all the rules yourself, you should bring people together with well-established rules for the game, allowing them to participate in improving it while you have the final say. This approach creates a winning game that engages people for years to come.
Do you need to be a strong and capable leader to do this? Absolutely. If this was easy everyone would be doing it!
If you find that there are areas or teams in your business that could benefit from improved performance we can help.
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