There are so many reasons to take good care of your workers. After all, it is they who will be dealing with customers and the everyday operations of your business. The good news is you can discover some smart ways to make your workers valued, respected, and appreciated below. Keep reading to discover what they are.
Pay a good wage
It’s super simple advice, but rewarding your employees with a decent wage can go a long way to ensuring they feel valued in the workplace. In industries that pay by the hour, offering a minimum living wage before tips is the best approach.
For those working on a salary system a fair wage, along with some added benefits such as health and dental insurance, gym membership and even meal boxes can be a great way to show your employees just how much you value them.
Make health and safety a priority
Actions are louder than words and if you don’t take care of your employees’ health and safety in the workplace, they will get the message that they are unimportant to you pretty quick. Not to mention that you can get in all sorts of legal trouble!
Indeed, a situation where there is an injury on the job can be disastrous and lead to a court case as well as some bad PR.
To that end, making sure you understand and abide by the standards around health and safety in your industry is vital. This means you must provide adequate signage, safety equipment, protective clothing, and instruction. Many businesses choose to appoint a manager that deals solely with health and safety for this purpose, as then they know they are doing everything in their power to take the very best care of their employees.
Encourage a work-life balance
All work and no play is never a good idea, and even if you pride yourself on being a hard taskmaster, there is no sense in running your employees into the ground. Such an approach will only damage your business in the long run, because productivity will drop, and people will get exhausted and go off sick, or with stress. They are also likely to build up a whole host of resentment towards you too, which means they are much more likely to leave and find a job elsewhere.
With that in mind, taking steps to encourage a healthy work-life balance is vital. This means offering flexible working hours, and no making unreasonable demands in or outside of work hours.
Listen, acknowledge, and reward
To get the best from your employees you need to see the relationship as one of give and take. That means even though you manage or own your business, you understand that your workers provide a unique insight into the way things are run.
Indeed, while rewards like bonuses and promotions are great, the one thing that employees desire the most is to have their opinions listened to and taken into account. It’s a no-brainer too because your workers will also be the people that ( in addition to your customers) are best positioned to offer you valuable information on how to improve too.
