It’s every bosses’ responsibility to get the most out of their employees. Companies are breaking the generations old model of working long hours, implementing ruthless business practices, and forgoing sleep to get more accomplished.
Instead, many companies are encouraging their employees to take mental health days, encouraging collaboration, and installing improvements like foosball table for workers to have fun, build relationship and relieve stress or high quality bunk beds for workers to take a nap and return to work refreshed. These small changes are changing the industry and employee happiness is at an all-time high.
Studies have proven that happy employees are 12% more productive throughout the year. This statistic should encourage all levels of management to consider their business practices and find ways to make your team happier to help them reach their full potential.
In addition to invest in your employees’ personal happiness, you must also educate your employees, maintain an open-door policy, and trust your employees to do the job you hired them for.
Invest in employee education
Employees fresh out of college are educated on paper, but they often lack professional experience that renders them ineffective their first few years in the industry. To speed up this process you must offer a comprehensive training program for college interns. This will allow your company to get tedious tasks done for cheap and will allow you to hand-pick interns to join your workforce.
It’s important for your employees to continue their education throughout the year by paying for them to attend conferences and share their experience with the rest of the office. This allows employees to collaborate and learn new techniques that help develop the business.
Adopt an open door policy
Maintaining an open door policy is one of the best ways to help your employees reach their full potential. This gives employees the opportunity to ask questions about projects to ensure everything is done to your liking.
The biggest advantage of an open-door policy is that it fosters a healthy working relationship in your office, which in turn increases employee happiness and driving production. Furthermore, an open-door policy gives your team the opportunity to bring new ideas to your door. Even your newest employee can generate an idea that alters the trajectory of the company.
There have been countless geniuses that never finished college so don’t underestimate your employees!
Trust your employees
There has been a rising trend for managers to lead from behind. This catch phrase has been used by Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama to describe a laissez-faire approach to leading. This approach encourages employees to trust their instincts and do the job they are hired to do. This management style allows workers figure out solutions to problems before they bring the problem to supervisors.
Leading from behind boosts confidence around the office and allows managers to focus on the big issues. As a result, the entire office will operate smoothly and everyone will reach their full potential. The biggest thing to remember with a laissez-faire management style is that there is always a point where a manager needs to intervene when large problems arise.
Takeaway
As all of the above are important, you need to remember that those require a commitment on your side. Hire someone that can help you in enforcing company culture and position her as your top aide in the company (e.g. Chief Heart Officer.)
Focus on culture that enables and empowers employees, and you’ll learn that your company success depends heavily on your employees, one of your stakeholders.