Employers

As leaders, we sometimes lose touch of the importance of our employees. This is not to say that we forget them, it just means that we sometimes forget how important they are to our bottom line. After all, without our employees, we would not be able to perform the functions of our organization.

The reality is that if we do not give our employees the tools they need to succeed, they will either quit or “simply collect a paycheck” (i.e. perform their job to minimal expectations). Either scenario is detrimental to your business.

So what does it mean to “set our employees up for success”? It means we invest in them, giving them the tools needed to succeed, both personally and professionally. This concept can easily be dismissed by larger companies having hundreds and thousands of employees, with a pipeline of individuals ready to take on any job. However, the basic needs of an individual to feel successful, needed, respected, and appreciated do not change, whether in a small company or large. It does not take a Harvard graduate to predict the productivity and longevity of an employee that is set up for success versus one that is not.

So how do we as leaders set employees up to succeed and avoid leadership mistakes? Keep reading!

1. Be Mindful

As Brad Federman once said “Paychecks can’t buy passion”. The first step for a leader is to become aware that a paycheck alone is not going to create the motivation for employees to succeed. Or bring fulfillment for them at work. You will not retain the employees you would want to keep without giving them the opportunity to innovate and excel. As such, you must create opportunities for them to grow, for them to champion a process or skill set, for them to learn new things, for them to innovate and learn how to pick themselves up from a setback. These are not only skill sets that can help them professionally, but personally as well.

2. Create Programs

This is where we need to invest some time and money. Task your managers with identifying training programs that can ensure their employees are given the training needed to perform their job functions.

I would recommend digital training programs that can be accessed 24/7, ensuring consistent application from one employee to another of what is being taught and giving the employee opportunity to take the course at their own speed and as many times as needed. These three vital elements of learning (among others) do not always happen in a classroom environment, nor in subsequent training sessions. Creating digital training programs take time and money, but once the initial investment has been made, each employee will be given the same exact opportunity to learn how to succeed in their job.

3. Motivate Your Employees

Take success stories and share them with the other managers. Utilize the experiences of each manager to further tweak the programs and make them more effective and more successful. Build benchmarks that show progress and success and then rally around those numbers.

Use your marketing team to use these stories on social media or in the trade press. Get the word out that your company has a culture of success and you will recruit better employees and retain existing ones. Create these programs to give your employees the opportunity to better themselves and increase their skills. You will then begin to see an increase in productivity, innovation, initiative, and retention.

Let’s not forget about what it does for the personal life of your employee. If they feel successful, respected, and needed at work, think of the positive influence they will have at home and with others.

Read more: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-ways-leaders-can-set-employees-up-success-gary-fleming/

Teamwork. It’s a word that is thrown around in the office on a daily basis, but when was the last time you took a step back and actually evaluated the teamwork in your workplace?

Why Is Teamwork In The Workplace Significant?

Without effective teamwork, productivity and quality of work will likely suffer, even with a group composed of multiple brilliant individuals. Likewise, without effective teams, companies will struggle to keep pace with competitors who do have effective teams.

Multiple studies have shown that promoting good teamwork in the workplace will have positive effects on productivity, quality of work, creativity, innovation and job satisfaction, all of which benefit the company itself.

In a recent study by Stanford, participants who were working on a team as opposed to working alone persevered longer on difficult tasks, showed more interest and enjoyment in working on the tasks, required less self-regulatory effort to complete tasks, and generally performed better on the tasks. The participants who were part of a team even decided to do more tasks related to those performed in the study in a personal setting 1-2 weeks after the study.

How Can We Improve Company Teamwork?

Now that we’ve established the importance of teamwork in the workplace, let’s talk about how we can improve. Here are 8 tips on how to improve teamwork within any organization.

1. Build Diverse And Inclusive Teams

First and foremost, it is important that we focus on creating diverse teams rather than teams of all like-minded people. A group of people with different backgrounds are more likely to bring diverse perspectives and ideas to the table. With more perspectives, comes more thorough decision making. We often tend to want to surround ourselves with people who think and act in ways that reflect our own thoughts and actions.

While a group of like-minded individuals with similar backgrounds may get along great, we have to think about the bigger picture – Will they bring fresh ideas to the table? Will the team members challenge each other to tackle a project from all angles? Or, will the team members be so agreeable that they come up with ideas that don’t get questioned or elaborated upon? If all team members think the same way, come from similar backgrounds, and have the same beliefs and opinions, the work that the team produces will likely be one-sided and less creative. Whereas if each team member has unique opinions, beliefs, background, etc. they will likely produce work that reflects more creativity and innovation.

Read More: https://www.lumapps.com/solutions/enterprise-collaboration/improve-teamwork-in-the-workplace/

Being a good leader is way easier said than done. Sometimes it seems like everyone and their next-door neighbor wants to be a leader, but not everyone has leadership qualities. Fortunately, leading is a skill that can be learned. And the most common way to gain experience is by making leadership mistakes.

But a less painful way to learn is from other people’s mistakes. So, with that spirit in mind, here are a few of the most common leadership mistakes and how to avoid them.

1. Being Halted by Fear

A small amount of fear is a healthy thing, making you stop and think before making any decisions. There are plenty of things in life we should be afraid of, like great white sharks and middle schoolers with Instagram accounts. But when fear paralyzes you, it’s a huge problem.

The Solution: First, recognize that you’re fearful and your concerns may be well-founded. A decision could cause you to lose money, customers or team members, but you can’t let that possibility drive you.

The best way to kick the fear right where it hurts most is to come up with a system to deal with it. Setting a deadline, gathering facts and options, and working out the worst-case scenario are just a few examples of the steps you can take to get over that fear. And remember, you’ve been promoted to a leadership position for a reason—you have what it takes, and your team needs you, so don’t back down now!

2. Mis-Hires

One of the biggest mistakes business owners make is hiring too quickly just because they really need someone. It does nothing but create more problems down the road, and you’ll probably be going through the same hiring process a few months later when you have to fire that crazy person.

The Solution: Take whatever time is needed to find the perfect person for the job. They should be a hard worker who has integrity and is on board with your company’s mission (not to mention whatever skills are needed for the position), and sometimes it can take a while to find someone like that.

3. Being an Oppressor

I know, I know. This company is your baby, and no one can treat it as well as you—but in order for it to grow, you have to let go. Remember those people you put through that rigorous interview process? You have to trust that they know what they’re doing and have the skills to do a great job. (Otherwise, why did you hire them?)

An example we have heard of is where someone who worked for a leader a long time ago who was such a controlling dictator that he made the whole environment fearful, stressful and miserable. The person loved the work itself, but didn’t want to go into the office, and couldn’t even lead their own team well because of their boss. Don’t be that guy!

The Solution: If you trust your team members, step back and let them succeed, no matter how nervous it makes you. Of course, when someone first joins the team, they should be trained and observed until they prove their competency and integrity. But once they’ve proven it, stop micromanaging them, or they will never perform to their full potential—and they may even quit out of frustration.

Read More: https://www.ramseysolutions.com/business/3-leadership-mistakes-to-avoid

Turnover rate. It isn’t fun or sexy. That said, if you know anything about balancing the science of running a business and the art of having employees, you know it’s a vital measure of your company’s overall health and culture.

Before we get too much further, let’s be clear that there’s something in this for everyone. For the rookies, we’re going to cover the basics, including how to calculate turnover rate for your company. We’ll talk about how turnover rate pertains to the health of your business and nail down an answer to the question: What is a high turnover rate? And for the seasoned veterans in the audience, we’ll talk through how to reduce turnover rate with employee retention strategies.

Still there? Great—glad we didn’t lose you to a pie recipe. Let’s get to it.

Define Turnover Rate

Employee turnover rate pertains to the percentage of your employees who leave your company over a specific amount of time. Think about all the people who quit voluntarily, get fired, or choose to retire—that’s what you should factor in when calculating your company’s turnover rate. Why is it so important to keep that pulse? Because you need to keep track of when and why employees “turn over,” not just wave goodbye and hope you can replace them as quick as possible.

Is Your Company Experiencing This?

Ugh. As if employees leaving wasn’t painful enough, now we have to do math. Most companies want to know their employee turnover rate on a quarterly or annual basis, by the way. Why? It just takes that long for anything meaningful to show out of it.

Read More: https://www.ramseysolutions.com/business/turnover-rate