‘Tis the season for gratitude and, as a business owner, you have a special group of people in your life who deserve your gratitude: your employees. There are many ways you can show your appreciation and say “thank you” for their hard work. This is the perfect time of year to step back and think about how your business gives back to its employees, how you makes them feel acknowledged and appreciated for their contributions. Sometimes it’s necessary to simply pull someone aside and literally say, “thank you!” for a job well done. At the same time, creating happy employees should be an integral part of your overall business vision and strategy.
At E-Myth Worldwide, we believe that everything related to your business starts with you, the business owner. Therefore, the first step in creating happy employees is to ask yourself on a personal level, what kind of impact you want to have on them as their leader? How do you want them to think of you? How do you want them to respond to your leadership? If creating a positive impact on others, including your workforce, is not important to you on a personal level then there is little chance that your business will become a place where employees truly thrive.
The next step in creating happy employees is to envision and integrate the kind of company culture and employee experience you wish to create into your entrepreneurial vision for the business. How will your employees experience your business? What opportunities will your business provide for them? What will they get out of working for your business over and above a paycheck? Most business owners don’t give employee satisfaction enough attention from the beginning, yet employee satisfaction is an essential key strategic indicator that should be highlighted in every business owner’s Strategic Objective for their business.
Your employees need to have a clear sense of where they fall in the big picture of your business, and they need to know the big idea behind your business. That allows them to feel they are a part of something they can believe in and devote themselves to wholeheartedly. Your leadership strategy should include communicating the big idea of your business to your employees as much as possible, which is something they will truly appreciate. In many ways, that’s what every person is looking for in their working environment and what so many businesses lack.
Once you’ve determined that creating happy employees is important to you on a personal level and you’ve formulated your vision for how your business will fulfill your employees, you can then develop specific systems in your business that will support, empower and inspire your employees and ensure they are willing participants playing your game to the best of their ability.
Perhaps the most basic way to create happy employees is to make sure that they know exactly what they are supposed to do in order to achieve success in their positions, and exactly how they are supposed to do it. Developing operations manuals for your employees that include documented systems for all the duties they are accountable for is the best way to empower their successful achievement of results and give them confidence in their work. Orchestrated patterns are natural for people, and by orchestrating your business through systems you will free your employees to move beyond their limitations. If your business is not fully systemized yet, you should prioritize developing a system strategy for your business and work toward that goal. And don’t forget, your employees can take a central role in developing systems for your business, which not only helps you make it happen but also helps them feel engaged and valued.
Your managers should support your employees by helping you provide the vision, structure and tools they need to succeed. Within any management system, there should be regular, weekly, one-on-one Employee Development Meetings (EDM) between managers and employees so that a productive and supportive relationship can be established (read more about EDMs in last week's post). All business leaders and managers should communicate in ways that reinforce your employees’ positive perception of themselves, while clearly communicating and giving honest feedback about areas that may need improvement. The rules of your game should be clearly established and aligned with your company vision, and all employees should be given the opportunity to accept their accountabilities and agree to the challenge of doing their part in the fulfillment of your vision, not just be “told” to do things. Having an up-to-date organizational chart and implementing position agreements with you employees can help to achieve that.
Beyond the fundamental elements of business development mentioned above, the following are some specific suggestions that may spark your imagination about systems you could develop and implement in your business to create and support happy employees:
When you put your attention and your intention to creating and retaining happy employees, there is no end to the possibilities that may present themselves to you. It is worth your consideration, not just during this time of year, but all year round because having happy employees and showing them your appreciation will pay off in the quality and commitment they bring to making your entrepreneurial dream a reality.
How do you show your gratitude to your employees? Post a comment and tell us about it.
Engaging Employees in Your Strategic Objective
Your Operations Manual
Company Culture: A Game Worth Playing
The Cycle of Gratitude
Andrea S. says:
Another aspect that goes hand in hand with happy employees a culture of safety. When employees understand that managers, and their co-workers, really care about their safety everyone buys in. Employees will watch out for each other because they have gotten to know them on a personal level through the potlucks etc.
Submitted Nov 25, 2009 10:01 AM
christopher L. says:
I agree with almost all of what was said, but would like to add that team members what to be part of the plan that includes their growth, they have insight in to what is working and what isn't within the structure, and while as management we sometimes feel that we need to always come up with the answers, our team, if we have allowed for them to be involved, will almost always have a added bonus insight if we listen and welcome their input and show the team that not only are they important to our continued success, but without them, we would be just another ordinary company trying to get by.
Submitted Nov 25, 2009 11:05 AM
Greg K. says:
Being accessible, fair, and having the personal goals and desires of your employees as a principle driver of your decisions and your actions is more important than outings and gifts. A commitment to personal and professional development of your staff that is demonstrated in a tangible way through training, mentoring, positive feedback, and support of personal development initiatives combined with a commitment to honesty and integrity in all dealings with clients, suppliers and staff results in people being proud to be associated with your firm. Combine this with processes and systems that they accept and support and you have high staff moral. To ensure that you can develop processes and systems that they accept and support involve them directly in developing or improving them and review them frequently with staff looking for ways to make them better. Ensure that there is a common understanding of corporate values that underly decisions and allow people to make decisions and even errors as long as they are consistent with your corporate values. Be quick to cull employees who do not accept these values and employees who the rest of your staff are embarrassed to work with. I have more than once made the mistake of leaving an incompetent or uncommitted employee too long in a role that caused the rest of the staff discomfort because they did not live up to the employees expectations of how our firm should be doing business. Be willing to listen without being defensive or judgmental - really listen. Work should be fun. It needs to enrich our lives, make us feel better about ourselves, provide comradeship, a sense of purpose to our lives and a sense that what we do helps others to a better life.
Submitted Nov 25, 2009 12:06 PM
Anna M. says:
I couldn't agree more with Greg. I too have made the dreadful mistake of leaving an incompetent employee in a role too long. The Employment laws of my country are difficult to work with and extremely costly and this has made me slow to deal with a work situation. I was also hesitant to tackle dismissing an employee for fear of unnerving the rest of my small team. Now I know that when your people have trust and faith in you as a leader they trust that you have the entire company's best interests at heart.
A recession is the best time ever to ensure you have a great and committed team. If you have an employee who is dragging down your company and you have done absolutely everything you can to help them, you have to be brave and cull quickly. There will be hundreds of people in the marketplace who will be keen, passionate about your company and grateful for a job. Why waste all your time, energy and emotional focus on a difficult employee when you can actively build an awesome team.
In a recession it is important to acknowledge the individual needs of your team but not at the expense of the company. It's quite inappropriate to splash out on Christmas gifts and parties when people have had hours/income cut. I have given a small handmade Christmas ornament and written a long personal card to each employee. In the card I detail all their great efforts and achievements for the year. These were already acknowledged during the year but I go over them again. I also write how I feel about employing them and how their efforts directly impact upon me as a person as opposed to the company. I think it's absolutely important to tell people how they affect you rather than just how 'their job' affects the company. The whole point is to inspire people to be great people, not just great employees.
Submitted Nov 25, 2009 12:54 PM
Chris S. says:
I agree beining on the the employee side until just recent, I have worked next to the employee who dosent fulfill his or her end, it is very bothersom. more so when you dont get reconized for pulling more than your weight. Pot lucks are fun but you need to have something to bring people a little closer to help everyone understand why they are the way they are. Like a show in tell one item that means alot to them. Have them explain it and why its important..
Submitted Dec 7, 2009 5:35 AM
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