.png)
This is a great question that so many entrepreneurs, business owners, and managers have.
What it really all comes down to is how happy are you making the people you serve. When I say that, I bet you thought immediately of customers and clients. Well, that's partially who I’m talking about, but there’s another group of people that your business is serving.
We automatically think about our customers and clients because that's where the reviews come from at the end of the day, but how can we help them have a better experience with our business?
I think that one of the best ways to do this, aside from offering great products and services, is by providing amazing customer service, and the way to do this is by helping your employees be happy because when they're happy, they'll make your customers happy in turn.
So how do we make our employees happy? What can we do as business owners to make the work environment the best it can be for our employees? Let’s talk about a few ways we can help with employee morale.
Is it better to whip the horse or to dangle a carrot in front of it?
The answer to this question is pretty obvious. When you dangle a carrot in front of a horse, the horse is much more motivated to move than it would be if you whipped it. It’s always trying to move forward to reach that carrot.
The same is true with people. Let me rephrase the question so that it applies more to people: is it better to incentivize or to punish? That’s what the question is really asking.
Too many employers use fear, punishment and bad consequences to “motivate” their employees to get things done. Notice I put “motivate” in quotes. When anyone is threatened into doing something, they don't feel motivated at all to do it; they feel forced to do it, and there's a big difference between the two.
I used to work for a company that had some hefty punishments if we as employees didn’t meet the company's expectations and that was rough. Especially since I was in one of the customer service departments.
It was a very stressful job as it was and having those punishments hanging over my head honestly made my work struggle. It was hard to keep customers happy when I had to be quick on each call and get to the next customer.
I’ve been on the other side of this equation as well and it sure doesn’t feel good when you’re rushed through the call. You end up not feeling like the company really cares about you and that, my friends, is a great way to lower your ratings.
On the other hand, I had a different job that worked with incentives. Instead of facing punishment for not performing well, we were awarded for our great performance. I could definitely tell a difference here. We were able to take time with our customers and really get to the root of their concerns. We were also allowed to do certain things that would help the customer feel better and feel listened to.
As you can imagine, this tactic helped ratings in a big way. From my own personal experience, I can confidently say that it’s better to incentivize than to punish… by a long shot.
So, what are some good ways to incentivize?
Give out bonuses and prizes
Employees love to feel like they’re a big part of the company. A great way to help them feel that way is by giving them bonuses that are based off of company goals being reached and by how well the company is doing financially.
As an employee, it’s a great feeling to be working hard for a company and then seeing those bonuses rolling in. They’re a great way that the company can show its appreciation for its employees’ efforts.
Another great way to help your employees feel appreciated is by holding little, friendly competitions where prizes are given to the highest performers. You need to be careful with this one though because it can be a double edged sword.
If there are employees that are very competitive and end up winning all the time, the other employees can begin to feel like they're worse than those other employees and that can create a toxic environment. If done right, though, this strategy can be effective in helping boost productivity and morale.
Benefits
Offering benefits may be out of the question for a lot of small business owners. And this could be because the company doesn’t have the resources or it could be because your work force is outside your country or you’re outsourcing the labor. In those cases, you won’t have to worry about benefits.
On the other hand, if you’re able to offer benefits and it makes sense for you and your business to do so, then they make for great incentives for employees to want to work for you, keep working for you and do a great job as well.
Offering benefits is a great way to attract employees as is offering bonuses. There's a downfall to it though, and that's attracting the wrong type of employee.
Hire slow and fire fast
The hiring process is a difficult one for sure. It can take a long time to hire the people your business needs, and it can be tempting to take shortcuts. Taking shortcuts, however, increases your risk of making the wrong hire.
As this section is titled, it’s a best practice to hire slow, meaning taking your time to do your due diligence, and to fire fast, meaning if you find out that a hire wasn’t a good fit after all, you get rid of them as fast as possible, which sounds harsh, but in the long run, it's the best thing for you and your business and that person.
Why would you want to fire fast? If you have the wrong people working for you, it can be detrimental to the work environment and therefore affect the business in big ways, and no one can afford to have that in their business.
Firing fast doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work with your employees and get to the bottom of the issue. Firing should always be a last resort, but you should get there or to another solution as fast as possible because of the reasons mentioned above.
Conclusion
Making and keeping your employees happy is key to boosting your ratings. When your employees are happy, they'll make your customers happy. When your customers are happy, they'll leave great reviews and boost your ratings. You can read more about reviews here.
As mentioned in the section above, hiring can be a grueling process. If you'd like to avoid that process then I'd suggest you look into outsourcing through an agency like us, which is a great way to get things done and not have to deal with everything that comes with hiring full-time employees. I say agency because if you outsourced on your own, you'd go through the same process you would use to hire a full-time employee. Also, if you ever need to “fire” someone you've outsourced work to, it won’t be the end of the world for them because it's just like canceling any service rendered by a business. Us, as an agency, will help all of those associated with us to find work quickly.
Here at FIREpreneurship.com, we offer content creation services for your business. We want you to succeed at business and have a life of freedom. If you're interested in learning more about our services, you can see them here.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. If you'd like to be a part of the conversation, we'd love to hear from you. You can either leave a comment below or you can send us an email to info@firepreneurship.com entitled “voicemail” and send us a voice recording. We may include it in a future podcast episode. You never know!