Starting, Running and Owning a Business

It’s easy to assume as a small business that it’s impossible to attract – and keep – the very best staff when the big guys can offer them so much more in the way of incentives and career advancement. Well think again, because there is a host of different strategies small businesses can employ to ensure their staff are of the highest calibre.

Tips to motivate staff

The first step is to lose the misperception that the only way to motivate staff is to offer them a high salary and big bonuses. There are actually heaps of different initiatives small businesses can put in place to attract and retain talented employees and not all of them involve monetary gain.

The first step in developing a great incentive strategy is to provide a career path for employees. In a small business, it’s easy to assume that roles are static and it’s impossible to set up a career path. This is not the case.

It’s important to listen to your employees and find out where they want to go in their careers and put systems in place to help them achieve what they want to achieve. This will not only help their careers, it will also potentially help your bottom line as you start to incorporate their ideas into the business.

It’s also an idea to make sure your staff are challenged by the work they do. Don’t just have staff perform the same, mundane tasks year after year. Instead think about how you can re-invigorate their work, or delegate some of your work to them, thus freeing up some of your time to work on business development.  

Another way to motivate staff is to give them job security. If people think they are secure in their job, they are much more likely to do a good job for you because they are likely to see the results of their work come to fruition. So offer staff full time employment and provide a workplace that is safe, nurturing and somewhere people want to come to.

Offering staff the opportunity to undertake vocational training is another great way to keep staff motivated. It will also ensure your staff are abreast of current developments in your field, which will deliver benefits to the business in the long haul.

Showing respect to staff, valuing their efforts and offering advancement opportunities is another way to motivate staff. It’s also very important to acknowledge the work your staff put in and let them know you appreciate their efforts. This approach goes a long way in keeping a happy, engaged team that is willing to bend over backward to help you achieve your business goals.

It’s also an idea to find out what the common incentives in your industry are. That way, you can be sure you’re offering comparable bonuses. This is important in ensuring you attract high quality staff to the business.

Steps to creating an incentive plan

To fully motive staff, it’s an idea to have a formal incentive plan so they know what they are aiming for and what their rewards will be if they meet their goals.

The first step in this process is to sit down with each employee and talk to them about what motivates them, what they want to achieve in their career and whether they are incentivised by financial or non-financial rewards such as additional leave.

After you have ascertained what staff want from their work, you need to look at the business and see if it has the ability to deliver what staff want. Can you provide the career path they are looking for? Do you have the resources to reward staff properly? If you don’t have the financial resources to reward staff are there other things for example training that you could provide instead?

Once you’ve reviewed what staff want and what the business can provide in terms of incentives, it’s an idea to sit down again with staff and run through their formal incentive plan to make sure both sides understand what’s expected.

Then, it’s a matter of implementing the plan and monitoring employees’ progress against their incentive plan. This is a crucial step, because if you’re not monitoring performance, you can’t judge whether employees have met their goals and are deserving of their incentives.

Once employees have met their goals on their incentive plan, you must provide the incentives you have promised. After that, the process starts again.

What to do when motivation is low

A good indication of low staff morale is an increase in the number of sick days staff take. If you have noticed staff taking an inordinate amount of sick days, there are things you can do to address this problem.

If staff are taking a lot of sick days, it might be because they are having trouble managing the work-life balance. If this is the case it might be an opportunity for you to undertake a staff survey to find out why people are taking sick leave. Perhaps they have a sick child and need time off to take care of the child. Or perhaps they have another relative they care for whom they need to take time off.

If this is the case, it’s worth exploring how flexible work practices can fit into your business. Is it possible to introduce job sharing in the workplace? Could you offer part-time work to some staff? Thinking about how you could help staff better manage their time, and thus become more productive workers, will help your bottom line in the end.

In the end, the trick to motivating staff is to align their own goals with company goals and develop remunerating and incentive packages accordingly. Although this isn’t an easy task, it’s worthwhile making the effort because a motivated, happy workforce is the best way to help you achieve your own business goals.