In any small business, building a loyal workforce is crucial to the long-term success of your firm. One way to do this is by ensuring your team is driven and motivated.
We explain the different ways in which you can help keep your staff focused and driven to do their best for your business.
Do your employees feel valued?
You should communicate with your staff frequently, review their progress and identify the steps you could take as a business to help your teams feel more valued.
This could include:
- Extra holiday allowance
- Better pay
- Staff perks such as gym memberships or childcare vouchers
- Development plans
- Tracked progression within the business
Staff will be motivated in different ways, so if you are going to put together a package for employees, the key is to talk to or survey your staff and find the options that would engage the broadest range of people.
This could evolve over time or as the business reaches certain levels of profit and turnover, incentivising working towards a goal as a team.
Training
One way to motivate your staff is to take an active role in their training and development.
How will this benefit your business?
- Build the skills that your business needs to grow and thrive.
- Provide staff with the development they need to feel like a valued member of the team.
Focusing on development can help your staff to feel that, as a business, you’re investing in their long-term career progression, especially if training is tied into long-term goals and aspirations.
Incentives
Another way to motivate staff is through employee incentives. Essentially, these are ways of acknowledging and rewarding good performance.
Incentives can take a number of forms, from competitions between staff, to rewards based on reaching specific goals.
For example, if you run a retail business, you could choose to reward the best performing salesperson with vouchers, or a weekend away — something that rewards and acknowledges their level of performance, holding it up as an example to other staff. You could also offer smaller rewards to all your staff when they reach predefined sales goals.
Highlighting and rewarding performance, and providing help to staff that are struggling, can improve motivation, as you are constantly acknowledging and assisting your team, which in turn helps to make them feel valued.
Bonuses
Another way to motivate your staff is to operate a bonus structure.
This could be a case of putting a financial incentive in place, so that when your business reaches financial targets, a portion of that profit is paid back to staff.
How can FSB help develop my business?
Finding ways to motivate your staff is a great way to build loyalty and drive the level of performance you need to help your business grow and expand.
Whether you’re a first-time business owner looking for ways to improve performance, or you’re expanding into a new market and need to find new ways to train your team, we can help.
From advice for new businesses on our start up hub to a 24/7 HR and legal advice line, we’re with you every step of the way.