The Complete Guide To Showing Your Employees You Care
As a business owner or manager, you will have lots of responsibilities - there’s no doubting that. You may get caught up in the running of your business that you close yourself off to everything else. The problem with this is that you stop seeing your employees as human beings, and start seeing them as cogs in your machine.
Needless to say, this is not going to end well.
You must show your employees you care, and there will be plenty of tips to help you do this later in the guide. Before we get to those, let’s discuss why it is important to care about your employees and the work they do.
Why should you care about your employees?
Well, put simply, they are the ones helping your business thrive. Yes, you do a lot of work. Yes, you built the company from the ground up. But, if you go rid of your workforce, where would you be?
You’d absolutely struggle to thrive, which is why you hired people in the first place! You needed a helping hand, so don’t forget where you’d be without your staff.
Furthermore, caring for your employees will lead to the following:
An improved retention rate
A retention rate refers to your employees sticking around for as long as possible. If you have a bad retention rate, it means you struggle to keep ahold of your workers. They’re hired, they work for you for a few months or a year, and then they move on. It’s bad for business as you are constantly chopping and changing your team, leading to increased downtime and performance issues. Running a company is hard, let alone trying to run one while constantly looking to introduce new staff members.
Showing your employees you care will increase your retention rate. How? Because it makes them feel valued. They feel like an important part of the organization - and that their work is appreciated. Employees are far more likely to stick around when they feel cared about by their employer.
Better productivity
Similarly, people are more productive when they feel appreciated and valued. Again, it comes down to the idea of feeling like they belong. When someone feels like a cog in a machine, they are happy to just plug away at 50%.
Why bother trying any harder? Your work isn’t getting recognized and your employer barely acknowledges your existence.
If someone feels like their employer is making an effort, they are more inclined to make more of an effort themselves. They develop a deeper connection to the company and can buy into your ethos more. As such, productivity levels increase, improving your work output.
A nicer work environment
Toxic workplaces are never fun places to be. Unfortunately, if you don’t show your employees how much you care about them, your work environment will be terrible. It could feel hostile at worst or just empty at best. Nobody likes coming to work; nobody has the ambition or drive to work hard for your company.
Make people feel valued and cared for, and the whole environment changes. The workplace literally brightens up and everyone gets along with one another. You create a more social place, which then leads to the first two points as well: a better retention rate and more productivity.
Access to the best talent
A lot of business owners always think about the benefits of showing employee appreciation from an internal perspective. All of the points above will look at the advantages inside your company. However, you can also see benefits when looking at the outside.
Primarily, you have access to the best talent when making new hires. How? Because people learn that your business is a great place to work. Employees rave about you because you look after them and show constant appreciation for their work. Other people hear about this and want to work in a place like that! So, you are likely to see some of the best workers around queuing up trying to get a job.
How to show employees you care
You’ve seen why you need to show employees you care, but how do you put this into action?
Funnily enough, it’s very straightforward. As you move your way through the ideas below, you’ll realize how silly it is that you haven’t been doing them already. Most require minimal effort on your behalf, so let’s see what you can do:
Offer good benefits
Start with your employee benefits package. Throw some things in there that are genuinely valuable and show your workers you are there for them. Free healthcare is a must, but this could extend to free mental health help too. It’s an easy way to demonstrate to your team that you can help them get assistance if they are ever struggling with something. A poor benefits package will make people feel entirely undervalued.
To be honest, we can also throw their wages into this point. Pay your workers what they deserve to be paid, if not more!
Reward consistently good work
When people work hard for your company, they deserve to be rewarded. Especially if they consistently go the extra mile every single day. If someone has done something that’s led to a big win for your business, they should be appreciated.
Rewarding hard work is a very easy way of displaying your appreciation. You can do this by holding employee of the month awards. Each month, highlight a specific employee and commend their good work. Perhaps you can give them a little prize too, like some gift vouchers or a present. Not only will this show that you care about your employees, but it will also encourage them to work a bit harder so they can earn the award one month!
Another idea is to hand out bonuses or raises to your employees at the end of the year. A Christmas bonus is genius because it’s a way to say “thank you for your hard work this year” to your employees. They’ll feel so appreciated and valued. Raises are even better, but you can’t afford to hand them out all the time. If you feel people are working beyond their current pay grade, give them a raise to show that you’ve noticed their hard work and it is being rewarded.
Give your employees a shot at new job roles
Now and then, you may create a new role within your business. Your instinct is to hire from outside the company, but give your current employees a chance to apply for the role first.
This shows that you clearly value each and every employee to the extent that you are open to giving them a promotion. People will feel ecstatic that they have a chance to apply for this job, particularly if it is better than their current one. Who knows, you may find someone who is very suitable for the job and highly talented. The fact they already work for you makes the onboarding process much easier.
Celebrate milestones
Sometimes, showing your employees you care about them is as simple as celebrating their big moments. You will have loads of employee milestones in your workplace, such as:
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Work anniversaries
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Birthdays
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Retirements
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Promotions
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Engagements
The list goes on, and if you celebrate these things it brings your company closer together. It means a lot to an employee if you have a celebration for their one-year work anniversary. It shows them that you care enough to actually remember this date. The same goes for other occasions - particularly birthdays. You may think it’s trivial, but remembering all of your employee’s birthdays is crucial as a business owner.
Talk to your employees
Last, but by no means least, you need to talk to your employees. Too many business owners or managers won’t speak to the people below them. They delegate tasks to others, taking a very hands-off approach. This is how you create a culture where nobody cares about the business.
But, if you walk around the office and chat with your employees, it shows a human side to you. Ask them how their weekend was, or what plans they have after work. Don’t get overly intrusive or personal; just have friendly chats to get to know them.
Likewise, talk to them about your business. Ask for opinions on any ideas you have, and make them a key part of the decision-making process. They will start to feel like highly-valued members of a team whose opinions are actually taken seriously.
In conclusion, it’s very important to show your employees you care. Doing this can help you achieve better retention rates, more productivity, a happier work environment, and more. It is also very easy to demonstrate your appreciation for everyone in your workplace. Follow all of the tips above, and you will soon create a business that thrives. Everyone will love working for you, and this translates to an improved overall performance.