Subtle Ways Your Employees Feel Devalued

Before we know it, another year will have come and gone. With Open Enrollment coming to a close, it’s easy to slam the book shut on benefits and start working on the end of the year reports and tax preparation. Hopefully, you’ve started to think about what next year will be like. Plans for expansion? Another office maybe? Will you be hiring more staff? Before you start to bust out the markers for that whiteboard and make your plans to take over the World, it’s time to stop and think about the ways our ambitious efforts as entrepreneurs may make our employees feel devalued without us realizing it.

Most entrepreneurs love the idea of being the ideal boss. They want the best work environment. They crave a workplace culture where everyone is laughing and smiling as they work with all they have toward that one common goal; industry disruption and competition soul-crushing. You can just hear the groans of their Founders from here. 

How do the dream and the ideal match up with reality in your workplace? Maybe you only have a few employees and the perfect work environment has been something you’ve been putting off making a dream come true until there are more of you to enjoy it. What about all those mind-blowing perks you were going to have? Do you have any? Are they mind-blowing or just meh?

Employees Feel Devalued When Promises Don’t Materialize

Everyone who is building a business has great plans for the future. We all see a bigger vision than what is right in front of the person we’re sharing them with. There is nothing wrong with building up from here. Your big dreams become an issue when those become the promises your employees are supposed to hang their hat on, only to see it fall to the floor. 

What you see in the future is something you should always be striving for as an entrepreneur. However, future stardom is not a valid benefit to offer your employees. Employees who are promised grand things at a later date are sooner or later going to start looking around the office for evidence of them materializing. 

Employees feel devalued when promises don’t come to fruition. You might have had all good intentions of making good, but when the things they were counting on from you are for naught, it makes them feel like you don’t care and it damages your credibility. To be honest, it’s hard to come back from that with your team. Your best bet is to keep your great plans to bless your staff to yourself and roll them out to the crew when you can actually do it. 

Making Plans For Expansion Before Taking Care Of Business

Growing your business at a staggering rate and skyrocketing everyone into supernova entrepreneurial status may be your big dream. That doesn’t mean your employees are necessarily on board. Even if you offer them paper millionaire status when they were hired, it doesn’t mean they are willing to forego all the necessary things any good company would offer them as an employee. 

Benefits are necessary for employee retention. No matter what you promise when your company goes public, no matter how much you pay them, going without benefits isn’t going to last very long. You can’t make up for lack of benefits without someone realizing they don’t have what all of their peers take for granted at their well-established firms. 

Going without the basic benefits, like paid time off and retirement options, is hard enough. Knowing you don’t have these things while you listen to your boss tell you about their aggressive and expensive growth strategy over the next two years is not going to go over well at all. Before you craft the perfect plan to roll out your company in all 50 states and beyond, consider well what your employees have while you count on them to help you grow. 

Do the right thing and make sure if you have room in your budget to launch new locations that you are taking care of the people who helped you get there. You just might find they are willing to work hard because they know you have their back. Employees feel devalued when they see that their boss places his interest above their own. Even if it isn’t intentional, it’s damaging to the workplace culture and will ultimately end in turnover. 

Are Your Employees Covered In Ways That Matter To Them?

Taking care of your team ensures they will take care of you. Employees work hard for bosses they know are invested in their future and care about their best interests. Are your employees covered for healthcare and retirement? 

If you have looked into small group health plans and turned green over the sticker shock then we have good news. PEOs can help you offer everything you’d love to offer your employees for a fraction of the cost. You read that right, you will pay significantly less with a PEO. If you’d like to find out more about how PEOs can help your employees and you realize your dream of the ideal workplace, then contact us today for a free PEO consultation.