Creating a successful and profitable business relies heavily on the employees you hire. 
As such, it is essential you respect and acknowledge every member of your small business team, especially for their individual differences. Ultimately, your performance and management skills will determine whether your business will thrive.
YOUR ATTITUDE
Small business owners should always have a positive attitude towards their team and the work they perform. No-one wants to work for a cranky boss. They should also encourage their team to be positive towards each other, and provide a respectful and friendly working environment.
Taking a negative approach with your team will inevitably damage your business, lose you money and possibly talented staff.
THE STEPS
To ensure your performance and people management skills are sharp here are 6 steps to help you hire the right people, manage them and utilise their skills.
1. Hiring
To achieve business success, it is essential to hire a hard-working team and find the most qualified staff for each position.
When hiring new staff it is best practice to look for people with specific skills. However, it is equally important to consider whether the potential team member has a good attitude, a positive work ethic and is enthusiastic about the job. An enthusiastic and willing team member with the right attitude can and will; learn, do, and achieve anything.
2. Train your staff
In a small business, it may be necessary for every employee to work in several areas. As such, rather than training each employee for a specific task, consider familiarising them with various aspects of the business.
A systemised induction approach used for all new employees will ensure consistent communication on, “how we do it here.” It will also provide the business with a training platform so each and every employee is trained the same way each time. Any training shortfalls can be easily identified and the overall training program modified. Ensure each team members training program is saved for future reference.
3. Share your goals
To maintain a successful and growing business it is essential to have business goals. These goals should be set with your team and the results should be regularly communicated to your team. By including the team in the creation of the goals and regularly communicating your progress will ensure the team’s focus is on achieving the desired results. A team focusing on achieving results will out perform a team that has no direction, and a team that helps set the goals will out perform all others.
Consider offering bonuses for achieving the desired result; team goals especially ones involving bonuses are excellent motivators and can provide real growth for your business.
4. Have meetings
Full team meetings are the best way to communicate goals, changes in procedures or processes, or to share successes. Full team meetings allow you to have consistent conversations with all of your team at the same time. Having consistent conversation with your team helps prevent those side conversation between team member’s and help keep all team members “on the same page.”
Planning for meetings is more important than just having a meeting. Planning what is to be discussed, how will this be delivered and what are the specific outcomes will ensure a successful meeting. Without planning, you are wasting everyone’s time and your money.
5. Provide feedback
Giving your team members regular constructive feedback about their performance has a multiplier effect. Individual positive feedback will make the team member feel good about themselves. This feeling will have a flow on effect to the whole team. People that feel good, perform better and overall the business will achieve better results. Constructive feedback should be timely; positive feedback will lose its effect by praising a team member well after the event. Try catching a team member doing something good rather than find fault, this will alter yours and the team’s outlook.
Having to admonish a team member for incorrect behaviour should also be done in a timely manner. Incorrect actions need to be corrected immediately, otherwise they will be repeated. A discrete and calm meeting should address the problem issue quickly.
6. Create workplace morale
Every team member should be recognised, thanked and rewarded for doing their job well. It is important for team morale that the team feel good about themselves.
To increase morale consider simple yet effective strategies; Friday afternoon drinks, social functions outside of work; celebrate special events like birthdays and anniversaries; flexible working hours. A happy team is an effective and productive team which in turn leads to a more productive business and a better bottom line.
THINK: As business owner, your most valuable asset is your team. Hire wisely, take the time to develop, manage your staff and create an environment that encourages creativity, trust and respect and your customers will ultimately benefit.
