Loyalty. You can work to engender feelings of mutual interest and concern between your business and your employees. Before employees will feel loyal to you, they have to know they can trust you to be fair and to consider their interests as well as your own.
There’s no foolproof method for gaining someone’s loyalty, but many of the same things that hold true in a personal relationship also apply in an employment relationship. The keys to a positive relationship are trust and respect. When employees feel respected, they will generally respect you and the business in return. Following are some hints for gaining an employee’s respect and trust:
Morale. Employees are likely to feel good about themselves and your business when they're treated fairly, paid well, and recognized for the good work that they do. Factors such as interesting work, feeling "in on things" and having their work appreciated mean a lot more to employees than you may think. If you're interested in keeping your employees happy and productive, take these issues seriously.
The simplest way to find out what your employees are feeling is to ask them. Are they getting what they want out of the employment relationship or is there some problem with working conditions that you can correct? Annual or semi-annual performance reviews are a good time to discuss this. Recognize that workers may not always be honest with you, either because they fear that you may retaliate, or because they don't really know why they are unhappy. But in most cases, you'll learn enough to be able to make changes where necessary.
If you suspect that you may have a problem with morale, you need to determine which aspects of your workplace are creating the dissatisfaction with the job and then remedy them. Even if you don't have a morale problem, you may want to motivate your workforce into higher levels of productivity.
Motivation. Every employer’s dream is to have employees who care as much about the success of the business as they would if the business were their own. You may never get employees to care that much, but you can foster a sense that what’s good for the business is good for them.
One way to ensure that you're providing a workplace that your employees like is to periodically seek their feedback. Having informal talks with your employees that aren't tied to any particular event, such as a performance review or an employee complaint, can be enlightening. You can glean all sorts of information about your business from this investment of a little time. Here's a sample script that suggests some ways to get meaningful feedback about job satisfaction.
Copyright 2006, CCH INCORPORATED. All Rights Reserved.