| | | Keeping Them Happy
4 ways to ensure your team is content
To win in business, you need a happy, satisfied team that loves what they're doing. But what if you don't have a Google-sized budget for mega salaries or hundreds of cool things to do to keep them engaged? Take heart! Although you need to pay your staff a decent salary and add a line item to your budget to reinvest in your team as your company grows, there are other ways to keep them happy. Here are a few ways to increase workplace contentment—without blowing your bottom line.
1. Show Them It Matters
According to a new poll by the Gallup organization, one of the key factors for happiness on the job is engaging work. Your team wants to know what they're doing is important.
How to Do It: You don't have to be developing the newest life-saving vaccine or feeding starving children to do work that matters. Every company is fulfilling a need. Repeatedly let your team know the why of your business through your mission statement, vision casting, storytelling, and any other way you can think to get the message through to them.
2. Let Them Know You Care
Your team is made up of real, live, breathing humans with feelings. They're not units of production. They need to be treated with respect and kindness. As Dave says, "If you want your team to buy into your dream and execute with every ounce of passion they have, you must be caught caring about them personally and treating them with dignity."
How to Do It: In every area, decision and action, follow the Golden Rule: Do to others as you would have them do to you. It's that simple.
3. Don't Work Them to Death
As a small-business owner, your biggest expense is labor. It's easy to fall in the trap of demanding more and more of your team, causing them to usually stay late to get projects done. But that path leads only in one direction: burnout followed by turnover.
How to Do It: Respect your team by respecting their time. Although there are exceptions when everyone may have to put in a bit of overtime, let your people know they are not expected to work thousands of hours. You want them to have a balanced life. Make sure they have the right tools to get the job done and enough time to do it.
4. Sense of Ownership
Want your team members to fight for the win every time? Then give them a sense of ownership in your company.
How to Do It: Commission, profit sharing and bonuses are all great tools to use to boost your team's passion for the win. Dave uses a combination of all three so non-salespeople can share in victories too.
Dave's friend Rabbi Daniel Lapin says God is inordinately pleased when we are obsessively, compulsively preoccupied with the needs of others—and that includes your team. Knowing that you care makes them care. And then, everyone is smiling.
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Suzanne Simms
Executive Vice President, Business to Consumer Sometimes being a leader is tough. And it never gets any harder than dealing with a team member who's failing. But you can't ignore the issue because sanctioned incompetence demoralizes the rest of the team.
If there's a problem with a team member's performance, I dig into the issue before making any decision. What is the root cause, and how much of it is out of their control? If it's a personal problem, how much time do you give them to get up to snuff? If they lack a skill set, what are some mentoring options or low-commitment educational opportunities available to help them?
Look at all the factors before making any decision, then follow the Golden Rule: Treat people like you want to be treated. It's what we do here, and it has paid off with loyalty and unity beyond our imagination. About Suzanne
As Executive Vice President of Business to Consumer, Suzanne leads more than 40 team members who serve consumers in broadcast, publishing, live events, new brands and mytotalmoneymakeover.com. She also serves on the company's operating board. Previously, Suzanne was Vice President of Affiliate Relations, where she led a team focused on growing The Dave Ramsey Show by developing relationships with key talk radio professionals and super-serving the affiliate sales teams. She has been with The Dave Ramsey Show since 2001. | | | |
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