Peace of mind with staff
FIVE PRACTICAL TIPS TO
GET THE BEST RESULTS FROM YOUR STAFF TODAY
The Importance of Developing Efficient Staff
Your staff play a pivotal role within your business. In fact, your business cannot function or continue to grow without them.If you are spending most of your time working in your business rather than working on your business,aside from not utilising your staff's potential,this could mean missing out on important opportunities to expand and grow your revenue. The great news is, by ensuring your staff are well trained, well supported and communicated with effectively, you will be able to work on your business and seize those exciting growth opportunities.
The Importance of Communication within Your Company
For your staff to work effectively as a team relies on your ability to communicate clearly your expectations of what, when and how their daily tasks need to be undertaken.To assist staff to improve their productivity you need to discuss what you expect of them and endeavour to keep them informed of any company challenges and changes that may arise over time.
This may seem simple; you speak with them daily so you must be good at it.The truth is, plenty of small business owners and even larger organisations fail to communicate clearly or often enough with their staff for their message to be understood and correct procedures implemented.
Most conflicts and errors that occur within a company stem from poor or misunderstood communication.
Dealing with and motivating staff may seem difficult, however, effective communication, on-going training and utilisation of business resources, will result in staff being committed, focused and on target to creating a successful company for you.
These Five Tips Will Ensure You Get the Best from Your Staff
1. Communicate with Cohesion
The best communication plan is one that provides clarity and consistency while adhering to the core values of the company. This can be enhanced by taking the time to create and utilise effective business tools such as procedures, policies and training manuals.Implementation of these tools will ensure clarity and consistency across the business while providing new employees with these tools will set them up for success from day one.
2. Simplify your Method
By simplifying your method of instruction,in ways such as reducing the number of steps needed to complete a task or arranging work instructions in chronological order,can go a long way to ensure that the information is received, understood and retained by the employee.
3. Time the Communication
Ensure when you are talking with an employee that your timing is on par with the task at hand and that you have their full attention. To try and demonstrate the 'lock up' procedure for the shopfront when the store is busy and the cash register unable to be counted,will not permit the employee to practice or retain the procedure.
A better approach would see you:
Timing the interaction so you are instructing them prior to commencement of the actual task, for example, at closing time
Asking them to confirm what they are to do to starting the task themselves
Allowing them to physically carry out the task, for example,count the money and fill in the time sheets
Asking them to verbalise how they are going to accomplish a task prior to them starting, will reinforce what you have just communicated to them. At this point, you can correct them if you think the instructions have been misunderstood.
By delivering instructions relative to what task is being undertaken, explaining why as you proceed, having them repeat the instructions and then act on these instructions, is an excellent strategy to implement.
4.Use Appropriate Tools
Taking the time to develop (and keep updated) effective communication tools such as procedures, policies and training manuals will ensure clarity and consistency across the business.At Effective Solutions in Business we can provide quality procedures and policies specifically tailored for your company.
Using a variety of methods of communication such as scheduled meetings, one-on-one meetings, company emails, announcements and newsletters will spread the company message and keep staff members informed, updated and on board with any changes.
5. Keep the Information Flowing
With ongoing changes to company policies, procedures, staff and structure it is important that staff are kept informed of the changes and the lines of communication are always open. As a result, employees will understand the changes, who they will affect and when the change will take place. It can put additional stress on staff and reduce productivity in a situation such as not being aware of anew contact person only because they were not informed of a staff change.
Communicating effectively with your team and using appropriate business tools to ensure simplicity and cohesion throughout the business, will result in your staff performing more accurately and efficiently,enabling your focus to be on growing your customer base and increasing the profitability of the company.
