To be clear, we don’t just mean ensuring that they have a job in the long-term but making sure that staff want to stay with the business for many years to come.

Many businesses make the mistake of believing that staff will stay for as long as the company wants, falling into a false sense of security. Quite simply, if your business does not cater to their needs then don’t be surprised when they walk in with their letter of resignation in hand. Offering attractive benefits like a byd seal novated lease australia can help meet employees’ financial and personal needs, making them more likely to stay.

Quite simply, if your business does not cater to their needs then don’t be surprised when they walk in with their letter of resignation in hand.  

What do Employees Want?

Staff want to be treated as human beings instead of numbers. While many small businesses do a fantastic job of treating staff well, many larger firms are often accused of failing to see an employee as anything more because of the sheer number of staff that are on the books. Yes, it can be difficult managing the individual needs of hundreds, possibly thousands, of employees (all of which have their own personal situations) but are so often accused of not taking the time to understand the needs of their workers. Office tools like Google Workspace by Hostpapa can help with streamlining internal processes and increasing productivity. 

It can be unfair to lay the blame squarely at the foot of HR teams and even team leaders themselves when it comes to big companies, with so much red tape and decision–makers to get onside before even agreeing to the smallest change in policy. That’s where small businesses win the day so often, as decisions such as pay rewards and bonus scheme examples can be reviewed and given the go–ahead almost instantly by a director.  

Employees simply want to feel valued by their employers and know that there is a clear career development pathway in place. Without this, your company risks losing even the most loyal of staff member to potential competition. 

Take Action

If any of the above sounds like your business, then you need to take action fast. If, as a leader, you cannot confidently answer what each member of your team believes to be important to them, you should be making strides into finding out. There are ways and means of doing this, however, and it isn’t a case of passing around a throwaway questionnaire that you may or may not get around to checking out. Use an efficient method like a 9 Box Talent Grid to identify who needs more attention or training in your company, and who is best-suited in their role and just needs a consistent reward for their hard work. This will help everyone feel appreciated and like you’ve taken the time to understand their individual strengths.

Talk to your staff and find out what makes them tick. What drives them to get out of bed in the morning and ask where they want to be in the next few years. Knowledge is power and by knowing what your employees’ aspirations are, you can work towards creating a unique development plan to help them realize their potential and dream at the company. 

The moment an employee doesn’t feel as though they can do this at their current place of work is the beginning of their job search. Once an employee has decided their future lies elsewhere, it’s difficult to get 100% out of them. 

This is why leaders must engage with their team, both on a professional and personal level. While you don’t have to be best friends and socialize with everyone outside of the workplace, making sure that you are as approachable as possible is key.  

Get to know the person as someone more than a number in the system and use that to create an environment they simply couldn’t imagine leaving. 

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A happy team is a hard-working one, so focusing plenty of time and energy into your current workforce, is guaranteed to better the business as a whole. Fresh ideas and creativity are what pushes small businesses forward, and you can’t do it all alone. The following are some ideas to help you to guide your staff in the right creative direction so that your business can compete with the big guys.

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Focus On Developing And Honing Their Skills

You’ll have already hired each member of your team because of their qualifications and ability to do their job. However, you can invest further time and training into their talents, to ensure that develop and grow with the company; this will mean that you’ll be more likely to be able to hire in-house, rather than having to interview somebody new. There are creative courses and seminars available nationwide, and internationally; so take some time and consider who would utilise what they’ve learned the most and how the investment would benefit the business. For some ideas on what’s out there, you can check out what’s online, and see where to send your staff to enrich their portfolio. Ensure that your team members go with their details and promote your company’s identity every step of the way; you never know what connections and leads that they could return with.

Using staff with higher abilities to coach and mentor those in a more junior role is another great way to push and develop your business’ skill set. The senior members of the company will learn more managerial skills, ensuring that you’ll build confidence so that you can delegate with ease. In the meantime, the newbies of the company will not only hone their creative skills, whether it’s using the Adobe suite or learning how to control equipment, but they will gain insider knowledge on the business and the way things are expected to run. Learn more about the positives of mentoring in business by doing your research; there’s plenty online that explains the benefits. Using a mentoring scheme will strengthen work relationships and encourage communication, which is the perfect way to share knowledge and broaden abilities among staff.

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Create The Best Working Environment

The environment where you and your employees work is where you can really get the design juices flowing. As a creative business owner, you’ll appreciate the impact that layout, colour, pattern, and details have on the mood of a space or surface. Therefore, you’ll need to make the interior of your studio, office, or warehouse, into a creative hub that can lift someone’s mood and spark some inspiration. Take a look online for some design inspiration and ideas. Cold, unfriendly, and lacklustre environment will lead to few ideas and low productivity, so ensure the place is bright and jovial. As a creative agency; you’re likely to have produced some work that you’re pretty proud of. You should display all the best work around the space and remind people of what can be achieved and encourage them on their next projects.

Give your employees some free reign when it comes to their personal desk space and wall area; everyone has a different way of looking at things and can trigger creativity in various ways, so let them decide what to surround themselves with. You don’t need to shout about your competitors work; however, if you feel that something was a job well done, or something impresses you, then find a space to display those pieces. Employees can add to the space if the come across something that they feel inspired them in their free time. See how companies are harnessing the power of a cool workplace to retain their staff and to boost innovation so that you can get some inspiration and put things into practise. Whether it’s photographs, imagery, or quotes; if something helps to give your team a creative boost, then it’s worth displaying so that everyone can see.

Part of ensuring your team are happy where they work is by filtering out the weaker links so that problems can be addressed with ease. Whether you need to brush-up on how to deal with no call, no show employees, or how to encourage better communication within the team; it’s important to use your leadership skills to keep the cogs turning. Regular meetings and discussions will help to highlight the good and the bad within your business, and employees who feel heard and valued, are often more expressive with their work.

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Give Them The Right Tools And Equipment

If you’re running a business in the creative industry; you’ll need to have the latest software and quality equipment to be able to produce a standard of work that can compete with the rest. Your employees will be aware of what’s available on the market and how people are utilising new processes and technology. If a competing company has more to offer your staff regarding what they have to work with, they might be tempted to jump ship. Therefore, you’ll need to invest in the right equipment and tools for each department whenever you can.

The latest software and design packages, and manual tools and machinery don’t come cheap; make sure you budget for updates and maintenance and consider if you need to find a loan that will suit your business’s situation. The effort you put into your employees and the equipment they use, the more they’ll feel appreciated and the results will be better productivity and a happier work environment. If your business uses less digital, and more hands-on manual creative processes; you might have less to worry about when it comes to updates. However, you’ll need to make sure that everything in the company is of excellent quality and enjoyable for your team members to use. This will encourage them to utilise tools more often and could spark creative inspiration.

Looking after the company’s property well and giving it the TLC that it deserves will filter through to your staff members, and they will gain respect for you and what they’re using. Motivate your team to try the various processes within the business that might not be part of their job role; they will learn more about what their colleagues do each day and gain a better understanding of the company as a whole. Going back to the previous points about mentoring and skills; asking each employee to spend some time with the co-workers to learn what they do and how they use their machinery, will help their ingenuity to gleam and i will a team building exercise that you don’t have to pay for.

Again, communication will come into play here. It’s worth getting your team together and discussing where thay feel they are slowed-down by what they have to use. You may not be able to replace everything; however, you can begin improving things, and looking into better alternatives for your workforce. Keep investing in each area of your business, but, always keep your team at the top of the priority list. You’ll have a group of skilled, well-equipped, and valued people on your hands, and your productivity will flourish as they do.

Because company culture is not always measurable in hard data; getting a feel for it requires understanding how employees interact with each other, how they feel about their roles and the organization as a whole and how this impacts operations.

Keep reading to learn more about workplace camaraderie, why it matters and how you can foster it in your organization.

Camaraderie, Morale and Productivity

The simplest answer as to why it’s important not to undervalue the power of camaraderie is simply that it’s more enjoyable to come to work each day if you like your colleagues. Take a moment to reflect on your workplace. Do people greet each other genuinely, or do employees encounter silence when they arrive to work? Do people throughout different departments and teams feel comfortable striking up conversations? Do employees support and encourage each other to improve and try out new ideas?

But there’s another key benefit to creating a “human workplace.” Nearly nine out of 10 employees consider work relationships important to their overall quality of life, according to one Forbes contributor. Having more friends at work tends to correlate with higher levels of engagement and happiness, not to mention lower levels of turnover.

Engaged employees are more productive, simple as that. Instead of thinking of camaraderie as an auxiliary issue within your business, regard it with the importance it deserves. At the end of the day, how your employees feel about working at your company will factor into how hard they work and how long they stay before searching for a new job.

Better Company Culture Reduces Turnover

Employee turnover can throw a major wrench into your operations. It’s costly to invest time and money into new hires, only to see them leave after a short while. Here are just some of the costs and strains associated with high employee turnover rates:

• The human resources department has to spend more time processing paperwork, reviewing resumes and arranging interviews.
• Other employees often have to cover the duties of departed colleagues and assist new peers in getting up to speed, lowering their productivity.
• New workers’ productivity in terms of output and quality tend to be lower than experienced employees’ do.

Employees give notice for a variety of reasons, from compensation to life changes to general dissatisfaction. But when employees simply don’t feel like “part of the team” due to a lack of camaraderie, it can certainly exacerbate other reasons for leaving or stand up on its own as a reason to search for a new job.

Fostering a Sense of Workplace Camaraderie

While you can’t force employee bonding, you can give employees opportunities to get to know one another—and have some fun while they’re at it. Kicking off meetings with fun icebreaker questions is one simple way to help employees get to know each other beyond job duties.

The Shining popularized this saying: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” And it’s true in the workplace. A nose-to-the-grindstone 24/7 mentality will only lead to employee burnout while diminishing opportunities for employees to make friends and blow off some steam. Incorporate a healthy amount of socialization and informal communication within your workplace to leave room for camaraderie to grow.

According to Harvard Business Review citing an important Gallup poll, “people with a best friend at work are seven times more likely to engage fully in their work.” Give employees authentic opportunities to get to know one another. Carve out time for social interaction that’s not contingent on a project or deadline. Take the issue of camaraderie—or lack thereof—seriously, as it affects your employees’ experience and output so greatly.

Provided by UST