This also comes with a lengthened list of employees. As an entrepreneur’s employee roster grows, so does their responsibility to care for and motivate these integral parts of their business. Worker morale is a vital part of team success — when teammates are motivated, productivity goes up. With increased productivity comes more and more success.
Here are four tips any entrepreneur can use to keep their staff motivated, thus more productive.
Regular Conversations
If you talk to employees in standard businesses run by corporations, you’ll often hear employee complaints that revolve around not being heard or consulted. In businesses such as these, the people at the top often don’t understand how work flows in lower ranks, thus employees want more contact with their higher-ups in order to communicate these flaws.
While entrepreneurs and small business owners often have a more direct access to their workforce, this doesn’t mean that employees don’t want to have these same conversations about their thoughts on how the business is running. Sometimes the way to motivate people isn’t to talk, but to listen.
Have More Meetings
Another method of motivation revolves around being able to talk with employees as a collective. A common disconnect that arises within small businesses is not all being on the same page. It can be surprisingly easy to keep information to yourself and want to do things on your own as an entrepreneur; big businesses may feel a greater sense of urgency to keep things consistent across all locations and employees.
Motivated employees are employees who feel they know what direction their going in. You, as the owner or main entrepreneur, have the power to make this happen.
Don’t be a Robot
Entrepreneurs who assume leadership roles often feel like they must be a stone-faced boss, never making any decisions based on emotion. It’s never a good idea to let your soft side leave you vulnerable to being taken advantage of, but employees do react favorably to bosses that understand what it feels like to be human.
Don’t recite stock boss phrases like you’re a computer — show emotions, be understanding, and make your workplace fun by understanding that people like to cut up on occasion. Running a business like a well-oiled machine doesn’t mean it can’t also be a happy place to be.
Let Your Employees Know You
Do you find it easy to feel loyalty towards someone you don’t know? When we find ourselves disconnected from someone, it becomes harder to think of them in a positive way. This is how many people feel about their boss, and then business’ become run on fear or obligation or the necessity to make money and nothing else.
Showing others who you are is how you keep them invested in you. A boss that someone doesn’t know is a boss that is feared, not revered.