Ways For You To Support Your Staff At Work

When you have a business, many aspects are crucial to its success. First, of course, you need to have a super-effective idea to start everything off. You need to have dedication, financial stability, and maybe even a little sprinkle of luck. But aside from all those things, you need to work with good people dedicated to the company.

Here are a few tips on how you can support those people so both you and they can get the most out of their jobs.

Pay Them What They Deserve

First of all, pay your staff what they deserve. Then, take a look at what other businesses are paying people at a similar level and equal it, if not going a little higher.

Paying well means that when you advertise a job position, you will get a good range of applicants, so you will easily select the right person for the role. It’s also an easy way to ensure that people feel valued at work, and once people feel valued, you may just find that they start to go the extra mile for their jobs.

Occasionally staying late after work happens a lot of the time in almost all jobs, but if your staff are paid fairly then, they will be a lot less resentful about those times. You should also raise their wages when they take on extra responsibilities – they deserve to feel as though they are being rewarded for their hard work.

Consider The Perks

If you are a relatively young company, you may not have a huge amount of cash to flash with your company, but it is still important to consider your employees’ perks. Perks are why good people apply for jobs, and they are also a reason that people stay at their jobs for a long time.

Ensure that you give a good amount of vacation days and encourage your employees to take them. Value maternity and paternity leave, and give a great package for people – parenthood is a fact of life and respecting that is important. You may not be able to afford huge glamorous parties and away days. Still, it is a great idea to make sure that there are opportunities to socialise together, have fun, build morale, and make the relationships between co-workers stronger.

Finally, why not consider summer Fridays? Leaving a couple of hours early on Fridays during the summer is a huge perk that people love, but that won’t affect the company all that much.

Have High Expectations

Having high expectations and targets is important to drive people on, but one thing is for certain: these targets need to be reachable. If you set impossible targets, people will be extremely demoralised and will stop trying to reach them at all. So it’s a good idea to celebrate hitting your targets with more than words – bring in cupcakes or donuts or do a Starbucks round for everyone to thank them for working hard and doing their best.

Invest In Technology

If you can, you should invest in technology to make people’s jobs easier. For example, if there’s a program that can make spreadsheets for you, it seems ridiculous to have a highly skilled person tapping away in Excel for mind-numbing days on end. If you have a good sales team, you could make their lives easier by investing in a good CRM – this software will help them keep records of their clients and their interactions with these clients, along with prospective customer ideas.

There are many ways to make people’s jobs and lives easier with technology, and you should try to take them. In addition, people will appreciate having extra skill on their resume.

Focus On Development

It’s important to remember that career development is something that many people are looking for – and that the people looking for it are the ones who are most likely to excel at any company they work at. It’s hugely important, therefore, to provide these opportunities where you can.

Look into training courses so that people can push themselves and extend their skill sets, and bring these extended skills back to your company. A great option is public speaking classes to improve effectiveness in your employees’ professional and personal lives. Choose a company like Throughline Group that can help you achieve immediate results with their proven powerful training not only in public speaking but also in how to deal with the media.

Keep Your Distance

When you are a boss, it can be hard to find the line between being a good boss and being a friend to your employees.

Unfortunately, you need to make sure that line absolutely exists – if you are too friendly with your staff, the lines risk being blurred, and things could get overly complicated.

Although it is important to take an interest in people’s lives in a way that could impact work, being overly chummy with people will lead to difficulties in the long run. If your staff are going to happy hour, join them for one drink and put some money behind the bar – there’s a difference between socialising with them and maintaining that distance and drinking with them until late at night.

Make sure you keep that distance, so you can reasonably make decisions and retain their respect.

Take An Interest

Although you shouldn’t be overly friendly with your employees, it’s important to make sure that they feel they matter to you. So take an interest in their lives – ask who’s in the photos on their desks and make an effort to remember their spouse’s name and their children’s ages.

Make sure that you celebrate people too – note down everybody’s birthdays so that you can provide a cake and have a celebration in the office. Small gestures make people feel very appreciated.

Be Flexible

It’s important to be as flexible as you can with your staff. You need to remember that they have lives outside of work and that the work/life balance is hugely important to maintain. It’s your job as their boss to make sure not only that they are doing their jobs well but that they are happy at work, and flexibility is the ideal way to do that.

Make sure you respect people’s families – if they have to pick up kids from school or stay home when their child has a sick day, be understanding of it. And you should also remember that people have commitments outside kids – some staff members may have ailing parents or relatives that they have a caring responsibility for, and you need to listen to them and make space for that. Finally, being flexible is important – allowing people to set their working hours, work from home occasionally, and maintain their work/life balance is a way to ensure that they are happy.

Thank Them

Finally, never forget to thank your staff. This goes for anything that goes beyond the call of duty – staying late, coming in early, taking over someone else’s tasks when they’re off. But it also goes for everyday things that fall within the remit of their normal job. You may think that it isn’t necessary to thank people for doing what’s in their job description, but the truth is that it’s a straightforward gesture that will make people feel appreciated.

Make sure that you model excellent behaviour in your office – say good morning, please and thank you, and keep any bad moods away from the professional arena – and you will absolutely find that the people who work with you will do the same thing. Fostering a positive office culture will work wonders for morale.

Remember that it actually isn’t difficult at all to support your staff at work. Listen to them, provide for their needs, and remember the importance of their work/life balance.