The output of your employees matters no matter what they are making, doing, coding or creating. Your employees keep your business running – when all is said and done, if your employees don’t feel respected and valued, they are less likely to produce high-quality work. Here are a few things you can do to increase efficiency – including rewarding them.
Authenticity
There is no replacement for you for being authentic and honest with your team. There is no reason to overcompensate or to act as if you don’t have solutions when you do.
Instead – be real, and be respectful of others who do the same. When your team doesn’t feel like they are hiding their personalities all the time, they are freer to put their real skills and beliefs into their work.
Be yourself so that they can be themselves.
Feedback loop
As a manager, sometimes you will have to accept that you are in the wrong, made the wrong call, or didn’t have the foresight to check something. Being honest and transparent and showing that you make mistakes (and take responsibility) is good for everyone.
But to be great at what you do and give your employees the room to flourish and be productive – you need to ask them for feedback on your processes and more. Let them be as honest with you as possible.
What comes after getting feedback? Making changes to the things that have been mentioned.
Recognition
We all know good work when we see it, but how often do we tell the person who did the work they did a good job? In an office, it might seem like you would tell hundreds of employees weekly that they have done a good job. But that is exactly what you should be doing.
When your employees are performing well, it is your job to make sure you quickly thank them for their work, highlight their great work, and more. It doesn’t take long, and it will be remembered by the employee.
There is a big difference between ‘good job’ and something thoughtful that details the work. Always make time for the latter – even if it happens outside work hours.
Recognition of hard work and good work is one of the key ways you can reduce employee turnover within your company and have higher retention rates – which looks good when it comes to recruiting.
Technology
No one likes to do their work on a seriously outdated or slow set of hardware. Combine that with limited functionality software – or software that no longer has updates, and you have a recipe for a frustrated workforce.
Instead, make sure that you have the right things in place to give your staff the best technology to make sure they can do the best job. They say a bad workman blames his tools, but they should be blamed if the tools aren’t fit for purpose or barely working.
Mission and values
If everyone in the company and on the team cares about the company’s mission and values, they are more likely to want to work together to meet them. Where there is a division within the team, they are less likely to help work with their team to meet the mission and won’t stick to the values either.
Celebration
Aside from taking the time to make sure every employee knows how valued they are individually, you should be doing things like having employee appreciation day where the focus is on the great work and the time that the team has put into any projects.
Keep in mind that appreciation goes from the bottom to the top, not the top down. Even the janitor is putting in the hours to make sure that the business is running as smoothly as possible. Don’t be tempted to focus on the bigger picture – offices don’t clean themselves, food doesn’t prepare itself, and the computers benefit from all the support.
Here are a couple of employee appreciation day ideas.
Freedom
No one likes to be micromanaged, and your employees must have some level of autonomy and the freedom to explore the challenges and opportunities around their role. It’s not just that, though, the freedom to choose their own lunch breaks, goal setting, and the type of work they want to do – or learn more about.
Encourage your employees to learn, work and explore within their roles, and you’ll have a much happier and more productive staff in no time.
Working on productivity is just one thing in the office, and managers can get a lot wrong; here are a couple of big tips: Top Mistakes That Managers Make and How To Avoid Them – Times International.
