Among the many business needs owners seek out working capital loans for, expanding staff is one of the more common. After all, employees are the lifeblood of most businesses – the men and women owners can depend on to provide customer service and complete essential tasks.
But are you getting the best out of your staff? Simply hiring and paying a worker doesn’t mean they’re giving it their all on a day-to-day basis.
The importance of engagement
Even more important than keeping employees happy is making sure they’re engaged. The former is a common result of the latter.
Put simply, an engaged employee is one who is committed and enthusiastic about their job. They are personally invested in the success of your business, and are therefore more likely to go above and beyond to ensure operations run smoothly.
The question is: What can you do to enhance employee engagement at your business?
The reward route
Some individuals maintain that offering employees incentives is the best way to boost engagement. Special bonuses, paid time off – there are numerous ways you can recognize and reward workers. However, you don’t necessarily have to rely on a worker reward program to improve engagement.
Creating a partnership
By treating employees more like partners in your business, as opposed to disposable workers, you’re far more likely to inspire loyalty from them, as well as put them in a position where they want to succeed.
A worker who feels like a disconnected or uninvolved from the business probably won’t be going out of their way to improve operations. However, a worker who feels like they’re being given a certain level of trust and responsibility will feel more invested, and therefore likely to take their job more seriously.
Recognizing performance
There’s no doubt employees will be pleased with an extra bonus for making the most sales, or time off around the holidays for always being on time, but recognizing and celebrating excellent performance can be just as powerful to worker engagement as rewarding it.
People like to know their hard work is being noticed, and by providing positive feedback, complete with sincere and public thanks, will lead to employees taking more pride in their work and striving to continue providing excellent service.
There are many ways to work on employee engagement, and some strategies may make more sense depending on the framework of your business, but one thing they all have in common is inspiring employees to give it their all. Consider what strategies may work best for you and your business.
