We’ve all heard the saying, “happy wife, happy life.” The same is true for the small business owner and their employees. If you don’t believe that, try talking to someone who owns a small business with miserable employees. You will quickly find that not caring to have happy employees doesn’t really benefit you or your business in the end. When you don’t have happy employees what you end up with is not so happy customers, decreased productivity, and the expense of lots of turnover. You know you can’t afford that. No small business can stay in business with that operating model.
What you might think makes for happy employees could quite possibly be wrong. Even if someone is paid well and has good vacation time, if they are not happy at their jobs they aren’t staying.
You know what good employees hate more than anything? Not feeling trusted. That feeling can come about for a few reasons but most of them are very common with a small business owner who thinks they will succeed faster if they just micromanage the daylights out of everything. Control freaks don’t have happy employees...at all.
Happy employees want autonomy and room for creativity or to at least be trusted in making decisions about the things that are in their job description. If you really can’t trust your employees to make good decisions, look no further than the one who hired them. If you checked references, hired someone with experience, and trusted they could do the job well enough to hire them to do it then let them do it. Case closed.
What goes along the same lines is the idea of employees working remotely. What was once a rare privilege for only certain professions has become a lot more mainstream in recent years. There are a few reasons for that.
So there are plenty of reasons to trust your employees. The bottom line is they’ll work harder, be more productive, and be happy employees who like their employer.
There is nothing worse than working for someone who judges your work performance based solely on how they feel about it. Happy employees are usually meeting expectations because they know what those expectations are and they believe they are attainable.
You have to be reasonable and fair about what you expect your employees to do for you on a given day. There is nothing wrong with setting stretch goals but they shouldn’t be so lofty that no one could hit them.
Reward your employees for meeting or beating expectations. A reward lunch is just a small investment on keeping happy employees looking forward to hitting the next goal. Everyone likes to feel like they know what they are doing and are appreciated for it. Let them know what you expect and reward them for being faithful to see it through.
Benefits aren’t really all that great if you are spending half your paycheck to have them. Most small businesses are paying way too much for employee benefits when they really don’t have to. A PEO is a great way to provide excellent benefits without breaking the bank for your small business and your employees.
Happy employees are healthy ones. Letting them have great healthcare benefits and the surety that you have their back by providing them is a win-win situation. If your employees are suffering through trying to afford small group health coverage, consider a PEO. You’ll get better benefits at a much lower cost. If you are not providing benefits at all, consider discovering what a PEO can do for you and realize how affordable great benefits can be; even for a small business like yours.
Most of the battle in keeping happy employees is providing what they need to feel good about their decision to work for you. Leaders are people other people would want to follow. Treat your employees the way you’d like to be treated and you’re halfway there. The rest is getting out of your own way to let your employees show you how great they can be.
If you’d like to find out more about how PEOs can help you provide great benefits and payroll management at less than you are paying now, contact us today for a free consultation.
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