Do you want to ensure that you take care of your employees properly? In this article, we dive into important aspects of being a good employer.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Your employees are a massively important part of your business, and you should be taking care of them to the best of your ability. It’s common for business owners to lose touch with the people that work for them, but that doesn’t mean that it’s okay, does it? No, of course not. The reason for this is because when you lose touch, you start to forget about how important it is to treat people well and to provide for them, instead getting caught up in your own problems.
But, you are the one who hired all of these people, and you need to make sure that you are taking care of them in the best way possible. The last thing that you want is to end up with a massively high employee churn rate because you can’t do something so basic as take the time to ensure that the people working for you have what they need. So, what can you do here? Let’s have a look.
Here’s What You’ll Discover:
Offer Overtime Where Possible But Never Force
Some employees love overtime. They love the fact that they can work a couple more hours and bring home a little more cash at the end of the month. It massively helps them out with their day to day life, and they don’t mind putting in the hard work. However, other employees are perfectly content with the money that they get for their regular hours and don’t want to work overtime, which is okay. Your employees should never feel forced to work overtime, even if you are paying a higher rate for it.
Forced overtime is not the way to treat the people who are coming to work and giving you their best everyday. There may be reasons why someone can’t work overtime such as family commitments, childcare issues and so much more. As such, the best thing that you can do is try to offer overtime hours, and encourage people to take them where you need them to, but never force it.
You might remember that there was a huge mess with Rockstar games a few years ago because they were forcing their employees to work overtime hours with the threat of termination if they didn’t. Do not be like this, as you will turn employees away from you, and gain a bad reputation.
Ensure The Teams Are Working Well Together
As the boss, you also need to make sure that your teams are working well together. When you hire new people, it’s important to consider the way that the new person will fit into the existing team, not just how good they look on paper. Sometimes paper can be deceiving, and you don’t want to put someone in a team who is not going to mesh well, and instead disturbs the flow. If it helps, try to think of each of your teams as their own little jigsaw. If a new piece comes along but doesn’t fit, and you are just trying to constantly hammer it in until it does, it still won’t, and your jigsaw is ruined.
So, you need to make sure that your teams are functioning well as teams, but also that they are communicating with the other teams. Everyone needs to be able to work well and work efficiently, and it’s up to you to provide the means to do that. We do highly recommend that you look into apps for employee communication just to be on the safe side and provide a secure platform for this. Do your research, find the one that you think will work the best, and then everything should be good.
Let Them Know Your Door Is Always Open
A lot of people seem to think that when you’re the boss it’s a good idea to shut yourself away from the rest of your business and just chill up in your office. What purpose does this serve? Yes, there are times where you will want to be left alone to complete all of the tasks that you need to complete. But, you still need to have an open door policy when it comes to your employees. They need to know that you are there to support them when they need it, and that you will do everything in your power to help.
Employees who feel supported generally work better, they offer more value to a company, and they are happier which means they perform better. It’s not rocket science, and it’s not difficult either. Be nice, be supportive, and your employees will be all the better for it.
Offering Mental Health Services
There are going to be people who struggle, and you are not going to be able to avoid that. Even if you do everything right, there are still going to be those who struggle either at work or in their personal life. But, if it’s impacting their performance or if you are worried about them then you need to do something. Of course, you’re not going to notice every time there is something wrong with one of your employees, which is why the best thing that you can do would be to offer a mental health service. Ensure that it’s completely confidential so that nobody runs the risk of feeling judged, but make sure that it’s accessible to everyone.
This is a great way to show your employees that you care about their wellbeing, and that you are doing what it takes to provide a safe and stable place for them. Look into the different options for providing mental health services for your employees, and get this sorted asap. Even if nobody uses them in the beginning, it’s good to know that they are there.
Zero Tolerance For Bullying Or Violence
The final thing that we’re going to say about taking care of your employees, is that you should have a zero tolerance for any kind of bullying, violence or discrimination in your business. There are no chances, there are no three strikes and then you’re out, there’s just one offense and you no longer work there. It sounds harsh to some people, but creating a safe and tolerant environment for everyone is a massively important part of supporting and taking care of your employees. You cannot allow anyone to feel as though they are unsafe in your business, or as though they are being targeted for their race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or anything like this.
The problem is that a lot of companies say that they have zero tolerance, and unfortunately they are not. They turn a blind eye to things like this for the sake of not losing employees, but you will lose more if you don’t take action. Not only this but you will gain a bad reputation as someone who condones this kind of behavior, and you should feel bad about yourself if you knowingly let it continue.
Final Remarks
We hope that you have found this article helpful, and now see some of the things that you should be doing to take care of your employees. If you are not taking care of them the way that you should be, there is a high chance that this is going to cause you more problems than you ever could have imagined. It is up to you to take care of them no matter what you thought before you started reading this article. At least for the hours that they are working for you, you need to be taking care of them to the best of your ability.
