Inside Small Business | Small Business & Home Business Marketing
Drop the Ego and Appreciate Your Employees
Rob Gunther, Guntex Industries
Employee retention is about creating a professional work environment that engages employees on a personal level. Employees need to know they are an important part of your operation, and they need to feel appreciated. But more importantly, employees have the right to be treated like professionals, and we should expect them to perform accordingly. I just think there is a lot more going on than the financial side of things – we’re not just exchanging money for labor. We’re working together to build a company and we must extend a level of respect and appreciation to one another. Here’re some thoughts on how to develop a healthy relationship with your employees:
Drop your Ego: Regardless of how much you know, you can be sure that you don’t know everything. Inflated egos cause supervisors to make bad decisions and ultimately lead to the loss of good employees. Reconsider the value of listening to your employees, and take some time to consider each issue before commenting on it. It takes a level of maturity to suppress your ego, but those of us in leadership positions should be the first to acknowledge the potential of each individual.
Solve Problems through Collaboration: We’re big on collaboration around here. Our employees want to be a part of the decision making process, and I try to give everyone the opportunity to contribute. Again, it’s important to care more about getting it right than actually being the person who gets it right. So for me, the goal is to get our front line employees involved so they can contribute and feel like they are part of a responsive organization.
Communicate your Expectations: I always hated company policies; they always seemed to take precedence over common sense. Instead of making policies, we try to communicate our expectations. We expect our employees to be on time each day. We expect our products to be manufactured with care. And most importantly, we expect our employees to act like professionals, because that’s how we treat them.
Recognize and Acknowledge Good Work: Most supervisors only notice when employees make a mistake, but why not make a big deal out of the good work. This is when you really want employees to learn, when they’re doing their job well. Employees will respond to positive reinforcement, and they will appreciate the recognition.
Inspire your Employees: As I mentioned previously, we all want to feel like professionals, and we want to take pride in our careers. That’s hard to do when your own company doesn’t treat you well. I prefer to challenge and inspire our employees rather than intimidate them, and I try to run a company that believes in its employees because you simply cannot make it happen without them.
Rob Gunther holds an MBA from the University of Tennessee and works closely with his father who holds a Masters in Textile Engineering from Georgia Tech. Together they run Guntex Industries, Inc, which provides an efficient response to the specialty bag needs and requirements of its valued customers.
Posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at 3:06 pm and is filed under Small Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
