How to Get More from Your Employees: Building a Successful Team

A company is like a football franchise. You can have money, desire, knowledge, history, and a fanbase, but if you don’t have a good team, you won’t get anywhere. One of the best things that you can do for your business is improve your team. In this guide, I’ll show you how.

Train Them

Many small business owners waste time and money by giving employees menial tasks when there’s nothing else to do. It’s something I see all the time in digital agencies. They don’t have projects to complete or contracts to negotiate, and so they give their employees jobs designed for the sole purpose of killing time.

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Remember that those employees are your assets. Their skills and experience are what you need to grow and sustain a profit. The more they know, the more profitable you will be. So, when work is slow and they don’t have anything else to do, train them.

Ask them to watch a webinar or two. Task them with completing an online course. Send them to an event. Even if it costs you a little extra cash, it’s worth the expense to ensure that their time is not wasted.

Give Them Regular Feedback

If your employees make a mistake or do something they shouldn’t, tell them. If they do something right, praise them. Give them constructive feedback. Don’t just tell them that it’s wrong, tell them?why?it’s wrong. And if they are repeatedly making mistakes, encourage them to improve and give them the training they need to do so.

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They will fail. They will make mistakes, and that’s okay. It’s all part of the learning process and it ensures that they will improve.

Set Goals

Create clear goals for your employees. Don’t simply state that they need to work X number of hours a day and then give them some non-specific tasks. Be clear about what you expect from them and encourage them to complete the work on time.

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Specificity is important. Rather than saying you need the work “completed soon”, tell them that you want it completed “within 2 hours” or by a certain time of day. Strict deadlines will push them to work harder and more productively.

Don’t Micromanage

You will never hear an employee utter the words, “Micromanagement? Yes, I love that”. It’s pretty much universally despised, and not without reason.

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There’s a good chance that your employees know how to do their jobs better than you do. If you’re a small business owner with no creative experience and you’re trying to micromanage writers, designers, and artists, how do you think they will react?

They’re the experts, and while it’s your job to tell them what to do and make sure they do it properly, you shouldn’t be hanging over their shoulders criticizing every keystroke.

Employees work best when they have freedom, and that doesn’t just apply to creative tasks. A secretary who has been answering phones and scheduling appointments for 5 years knows a lot more about the job than you do.

Make Sure They Get Along

Let’s return to the football franchise metaphor for a moment.

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You can have the best players in the league and still struggle to get the W. It’s a team for a reason, and while individual talents should be nurtured, they are useless if the team doesn’t get along.

The same is true for a business, which is why you need to make sure that the team gets along.

I can’t tell you how many horror stories I’ve heard from friends who hate their colleagues, managers, and employers. They are patronized, demeaned, and even bullied. They dread going to work and they hate their job so much that they never truly commit.

That doesn’t mean that your employees need to be friends, but they should at least respect each other. Pay attention to how your managers are treating their team members, make sure that everyone is respectful, and if you notice any issues, stop them before they get out of control.

Give Credit Where Credit is Due

Nothing angers an employee more than when a manager takes credit for all their hard work. If you have managerial staff between you and the bulk of your employees, acknowledge who those employees are, where their skills lie, and what work they are doing for you.

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Imagine how delighted those employees would be if the boss of the company acknowledges their work and praises them. Not only will it make them feel better about working for you, but it will also encourage them in the future and ensure that they continue working hard.

By the same token, it’s important to consider promotions carefully and to promote the people who deserve it the most, as opposed to the ones who seem to have the best qualifications.

Loyalty is important, and if you are loyal to your employees, they will repay you with hard work.

More Information on Hiring the Best Employees

Growing Pains with Operations — James Orsini #ThisWeekWithSabir

Need some more tips on finding the most suitable team? Take a look at this guide with James Orsini, a vastly experienced operations manager and CEO who has worked with some of the best innovators and strategists over the years. The full guide is available on the?Growth By Sabir website ?and you can watch my interview with?James Orsini on YouTube .