When thinking about business and community,
our minds might tend to go towards community outreach, partnering, networking,
providing assistance to various external groups and so on. However important as
all this is, it’s also important to work on creating a happy and healthy
community within the workplace itself.
Times
have changed
There can be a tendency for business owners
to think of the hiring process as just that – providing employees with jobs in
exchange for their skills and talents, and then expecting them to get on with
their appointed tasks. But while this type of setup may have been considered
normal in the decades gone past, it’s now outdated – especially since many
employees are now highly educated and mobile, and less likely to stay in a job
for many years if dissatisfied.
Believe it or not, even in this day-and-age
there are workplaces where people are expected to just get on with work and not
look sideways. But creating a happy workplace is difficult if employees are
micro-managed and unable to feel part of a workplace community. It takes some
letting go of the wheel and allowing your people room to grow, and to connect
in meaningful ways with each other.
Treating employees in an over-controlled way
can result in an ongoing exodus, when you need to hang on to your brightest and
best for the best results. Achieving that involves more than just offering a
bigger pay packet.
Some
advice from the experts
In this article, Richard Branson
provides the following advice for keeping your valued workers happy:
- Get involved in your employees’ career paths right from the start at the hiring stage. Find out what they have in mind for career advancement, and whether this could be a good match for the company’s goals.
- Keep in regular contact with your workers to see how things are going for them.
- Make your people feel valued. Often it is not the pay-packet that sends them packing, but the sense of being overlooked or undervalued.
- Give your workers and teams some real responsibilities for projects that they can run with, and some scope to come up with ideas and be creative.
- If what one of your valued workers wants is more work/life balance, see if there is some way you can accommodate this as well.
·
If
an employee wants to start a business, see if there is a way they could launch
a new start-up business within the company. Branson also says that if one of your people
decides to leave and become an entrepreneur themselves, see this as a good
thing and not a threat. It might even provide opportunities for collaborating
later on!
So overall, be prepared to be a little
flexible. While you may have a plan set out for your business, if it is set in
stone you may miss noticing opportunities for new ideas or expansion.
Other tips
for a happy workplace
One of the best ways to provide job
satisfaction is through meaningful training and development. When conducting
workplace reviews, ask your workers what they would like to learn in the way of
new skills and see if you can accommodate this. This could be done through external courses
or training programs, internal training, subsidised online training, learning
skills in another department and so on.
Providing opportunities for training can be a
win-win – you get to benefit from your employees’ new skills, and they get to
feel you value them enough to invest in their career paths.
It’s also vital to provide a safe working
environment, whether you’re a large corporation or a small business; and a good
idea to consider providing extra benefits to show your appreciation,
such as flexible work hours, perks and rewards.
Work does not have to be miserable! Creating
a vibrant happy community in the workplace where people have some autonomy,
where they are given scope to be creative, where they are treated as adults and
trusted, involves a little letting go of the controls. But it has the potential
to yield results for your business that make it worth the risk!
