If you want your business to succeed, if you want to grow and be profitable year upon year, then you need to focus on the important things. Most mangers assume that to be about new products and services, innovative marketing campaigns and moving towards a more online world.
Of course, those things are important, but what about the ones who actually do the work? Surely, if you didn’t have your employees, your business would be dead in the ground?
Focusing on getting the best out of your employees is the fast track towards business success. That’s how simple it can all be. You can work with the most up to date technology, invent products which knock the others out of the park, but if you don’t have happy and engaged employees, your business is simply going to flounder and fail.
So, with all of that in mind, what can you do to get the best out of your employees in the first place?
This guide is going to give you the main points to consider and give you some useful advice on how you can improve morale and overall performance within your office space. Most of these ideas may seem simple at face value, but when you delve a little deeper and look into the reasons why they’re important, you’ll understand that it’s really all about connecting with a human being on a deeper level. It’s simply about giving your employees what they need on an emotional level.
If you can do that, you’ll notice that your business performance picks up instantly.
Don’t believe us? Let’s delve a little deeper and show you why.
What is Morale, And Why is it so Vital?
Morale isn’t about everyone singing along in the office and skipping to and from their lunch breaks, it’s about making sure that everyone is content in their role and feels supported. This can be anything from the type of office furniture they use and how it affects the body, to the way you listen to their ideas and take them on board, or otherwise.
The basic equation is this – when morale is high, productivity is high, and therefore profits are on the rise. When morale is low, productivity is low, mistakes are common, customers are affected, and profits start to fall.
Can you see how vital it is to ensure that your staff are smiling? As a manger, if you focus on profit margins, marketing campaigns and hitting your employees over the head with targets (metaphorically of course), then you’re going to end up with a rather annoyed and unhappy workforce. On the other hand, if you ask their opinions, treat them as humans, and listen to what they have to say, you might just find that the rewards are larger than you think.
Now we know why morale is the way forward, we need to focus on how to improve it. The methods we’re going to talk about are grouped into large subject areas. We’re going to cover four main areas, and if you can tick each one off your list, you’ll certainly notice that your morale is high, your staff are firing on all cylinders, and ideas are coming to you thick and fast.
Method 1: Supporting Your Employees to Achieve Their Potential
The first subject we’re going to cover is about supporting your employees within their working environment, in order to help them achieve their potential. This isn’t about the office environment, as that is something we’re going to cover a little later on. This subject is about supporting the work your employees do and helping them to take it a step further in the future.
For instance, perhaps you have an employee who you know can go on to do great things, they simply need a little confidence boost and they also need someone to help guide them on certain skill areas. In this case, how about mentorship?
Mentorship For New Employees, or Those Lacking in Confidence
If you’re not sure what mentorship is, check out this infographic below
Source: www.smf.org.uk/mentoring
The main plus points of assigning a mentor to an employee include:
- An assigned person for the employee to ask questions
- A bond of trust can be built up between the employee and their mentor, making it easier for the employee to really listen to the advice being given to them
- By giving an employee the right mentor, e.g. an experienced person, they can learn from first hand experience, rather than something they read in a text book or a ‘how to’ guide online
- Feeling supported by a mentor will give an employee a sense of real confidence
Mentors are normally assigned for new employees, or possibly for employee who lack self-confidence and belief in their abilities. By having someone they can ask questions, perhaps shadow, and basically someone who is looking out for them, the employee will feel more confident and therefore more able to give suggestions around the meeting room chairs, when perhaps they may have kept quiet in the past.
Offering New Responsibilities For Those Who Seek Them
It’s perfectly normal from time to time for your job to become a little mundane; perhaps the day’s tasks are the same day in, day out, and in that case, it’s easy for life to get a little ‘samey’. If that’s your daily working schedule, can you blame an employee for becoming a little lack-lustre? Of course not!
Identifying which employees might be suitable for new and extra responsibilities is a good way to get the best out of them. An employee may have become stuck in a rut, perhaps feeling a little dragged down by the mundane approach to their job, and in that case, a new task could be enough to pull them out of it, inject some spark, and get their brain cells firing on all cylinders!
There is a warning point with this particular suggestion however. It’s never a good idea to simply pile extra responsibility onto an employee who doesn’t seem able to deal with it, or who hasn’t asked for it. In this case, morale is likely to go the other way entirely, with stress and anxiety starting to seep into the daily routine.
A good way to approach this subject is to bring up the matter at a team meeting. When you’re sat around the meeting room tables, simply mention that if anyone is feeling like they might like to try a new task, to let you know. You should mention that they won’t be overloaded, because it’s unlikely any employee will come forward to add extra work to their already bulging plate!
In this case, explain that you would like to give employees the chance to develop new skills, and anyone who is interested should come forward and you can discuss tasks which can be reassigned elsewhere, and new ones which can be given to them.
You never know, an employee might come forward and be given a completely new task, which they shine at unexpectedly. You might have a future manager sat within your office desking system who has unexplored talents!
The bottom line is that by offering this chance, you’re showing your employees that you want to help them develop their skills and knowledge and perhaps move onto other roles in the future.
Offering Training Courses And Access to Education
The idea of a new training course isn’t usually met with enthusiasm, but giving your employees the opportunity to come to you with any courses they might like to go on is a good option. This shows that you’re not simply picking and choosing for them, you’re allowing them to make conscious decisions about their careers, and that management will do their best to arrange it.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that your employees can pick courses and educational opportunities which are not related to their role at all, but anything which may give them extra skills and knowledge for the future is something to think about.
Many organisations offer training budgets for each individual employee, e.g. a certain amount of budget per year which they are allowed to access for specific training and educational courses. Provided this doesn’t interfere with their current work too much, offering such opportunities could be a great way to boost confidence and encourage future learning.
By supporting your employees in their role and helping them to develop into future roles and careers, you’re basically showing that you care. You might wonder why this helps a business, because surely business isn’t about caring and sharing, it’s about cash. Yes, that’s true, but it’s also about looking after the employees you have, helping them grow and meet their potential, and then you have a much better chance of retaining staff in the future, rather than having to constantly recruit and train up once more. Remember, training and recruitment costs time and money.
Method 2: Helping Employees to Achieve a Quality Home And Work Life Balance
The next subject is about ensuring that your employees have a quality home and work life balance. There is only so much you can do with this particular subject, because you can’t force a person to make healthy decisions about their wellbeing, and you can’t force them to come forward when issues arise. What you can do however is raise awareness of problems and show a supportive attitude towards righting any issues.
The two main sub-sections within this method are about raising awareness of health and wellbeing subjects, and offering a range of flexible working options. Both of these help to put the focus on health. When you do that, you’re investing in your employees. Sick employees are not productive, employees who are in pain from unsupportive office chairs are not productive, employees who are suffering from stress on the quiet are not productive, and employees who are under pressure, juggling home and work commitments are not productive either.
The answer? An open door policy which allows employees to come to you when something is causing a problem, and also raising awareness of health and wellbeing, so that sensible and healthy decisions can be made.
Raise Awareness of Health Issues, And Focus on Wellbeing
One of the biggest health issues you will hear about in the workplace is stress. When left untreated, stress can be life-threatening. Check out this video which clearly shows the issues of work-related stress.
As you can see from this video, stress affects the entire body and can also cause anxiety and depression, which opens up an entirely new and undesirable route.
The best ways to help your staff deal with stress are:
- Have an open door policy and ensure that your staff feel able to come to you to talk about any stress or pressure they’re under, without judgement
- Have regular training and awareness sessions on stress management techniques
- Ensure that you’re not piling too much work onto any one person
- Create an office culture which is supportive and team orientated, to ensure that nobody feels under undue pressure alone
- Always encourage your staff to take their breaks, and to take their lunch break away from their desks
Aside from stress, what other health-related issues should you be supporting your staff with in the office world?
Musculoskeletal issues are a big deal in office work. You will have noticed a quick nod towards this in the video you just watched, but most of it comes down to a sedentary lifestyle and not sitting correctly.
Put simply office workers sit for far too long and it’s important to encourage your staff to get up and move around as much as possible, and to incorporate an active working culture into your office space. In addition, you should have regular checks to ensure that they know how to sit correctly, e.g. in proper alignment and making use of ergonomic chairs as much as possible.
Think about things like walking meetings, standing desks, encouraging exercise during break times, and basically raising awareness within your office about the need to get up and move around, do some stretches, and focus on active working as much as possible. A little later on we’re going to talk about something called the agile workplace. This is certainly something you could think about implementing into your office, as it is focused not only on productivity, but also on creating an active working environment.
To really highlight the dangers of sitting for too long at a large office desk, check out this infographic below.
Source: https://visual.ly/community/infographic/health/get-moving-avoid-health-risks-sedentary-lifestyle
By highlighting these health issues, you’re not playing teacher and telling your employees what to do with their own health, you’re advising and allowing them to make healthy choices as a result.
You’re also showing that you care, once more, and an employee who knows their manager cares about their health is going to work harder than an employee who thinks their manager couldn’t care less.
Offering Flexible Working Schemes
Many businesses are finding huge benefit from offering a range of flexible working options to their employees.
Let’s be honest, not every employee wants to work full time and even if they do, it’s probably more because they need to for the wage than the fact they want to spend every day in the office. We all have responsibilities at home or in other areas of our lives, and offering your employees the chance to be able to fulfil those, whilst still being able to do their job, is a good way forward.
The most common flexible working options include:
- Remote working, i.e. working from anywhere, provided you have a laptop and Internet connection
- Part time hours
- Flexi-time
- Working from home
- Annualised hours
An employee who is able to work in a way which suits their home and work life better is likely to be far more productive than one who is struggling with several different commitments. Juggling many balls in the air is stressful, and that isn’t going to equate to a happy employee.
Despite that, the flexible working arrangement does have to make sense for the business too, and in that case you should discuss with your employee and come to a mutually beneficial arrangement. Offering career breaks could also be a good choice, especially for employees who are perhaps going through a temporary period of home issues, or maybe they’re simply not sure what to do with their career and need some time to think about it.
By offering a new way of working, you’re allowing your employee to work in a way which suits them. This is one of the best ways to get extra productivity out of your employees, and one which can bring major advantages to both the business and the person concerned.
Method 3: Treating Everyone as Human Beings
One of the most basic methods of getting the best out of your employees is one of the simplest. Treat your employees as human beings.
It’s really that simple!
Nobody wants to be considered a number, a statistics. Employees are living, breathing human beings with feelings, wants, desires, needs, likes and dislikes. By treating your employees as just a number you’re missing out on extra effort, ideas, suggestions, and you’re going to seriously impact on your office morale levels too.
It doesn’t matter if you furnish your office with the best office furniture sets, your employees are not going to feel valued as a result, if you’re treating them with the basics they need.
So, what do you need to do?
These things shouldn’t really need to be discussed, but it’s surprising how many of them get passed over during a busy working week!
- Listen to your employees, and by that we mean really listen to what is being said, how it’s being said, what isn’t being said, and read their body language too.
- Be open to suggestions and ideas, and take them all seriously. This means considering them, working out whether they’re feasible or not, and if they’re not possible, explaining to the person who suggested it, and why.
- Ask, don’t tell. Surely you’ve been in a position where a manager or someone else has basically told you to do something in a less than friendly way. Did you suddenly feel like you were back at school? Probably! Being asked to do something is far better than being told. You might be telling them underneath it all, but it’s how you say it that makes the difference.
- Be fair to all employees. This means being inclusive and ensuring that your office places importance upon diversity and equality. Promotions should be considered based only on performance and ability, and nothing else. New responsibitlies should be given to those who are able to take them on and those who are suitable, and not for any other reason.
- Have a firm anti-bullying stance in your organisation, and ensure that everyone knows how to report bullying as a matter of urgency. There should be zero tolerance to such playground behaviour in the workplace.
- Deal with conflicts in a quick and firm manner, but also ensure fairness across the board. As a manager, it’s also important to remain impartial when dealing with such issues, and ensure fairness at all times.
These are the basics, but it really comes down to speaking to employees human to human, because that’s what you’re doing at the end of the day. Far too many managers rely upon authority when speaking to their employees, and this places them ‘above’. In this case, employees feel alienated, possibly even anxious, and this isn’t a good way to attempt to get the best out of anyone. Speaking to employees face to face, in a casual and respectful manner is all it takes.
Get to Know Individual Personalities
A very useful tactic for managers is to get to know employees and their particular personality type. This doesn’t mean you need to analyse them, but it means you need to know how they deal with situations, and how they react to certain issues. This therefore gives you important information on how to get the best out of them.
For instance, you might have a shy member of staff who doesn’t like contributing too much to large discussions around boardroom chairs. But, when you talk to this person in a smaller group, they’re extremely knowledgable and have some great suggestions. By not recognising this fact, you’re missing out on those suggestions and the input that your employee could put into important discussion. In this case you would have smaller discussions with this person, rather than large brainstorming sessions with multiple other people.
Similarly, you might have a very extroverted member of staff, someone who is very lively and brimming with great ideas, but they struggle with quiet, one on one work. In this case, encouraging this person to collaborate around the office bench desks with other members of staff will help to get the best out of their enthusiasm, whilst possibly encouraging other quieter members of staff to do the same.
If you don’t take the time to get to know your employees, how are you supposed to know how to get the best out of them? We’re all totally individual at the end of the day, and a one size fits all approach never works.
For more information on different personality types and how to encourage them, check out this very interesting video.
Method 4: Optimising The Office Environment
The final method is about optimising the office environment to ensure comfort and support for your employees as they go about their work during the day.
You will remember a little earlier we mentioned about the prevalence of musculoskeletal issues in office workers. It’s no surprise when you consider the amount of time spent sat at contemporary office furniture. It’s not all about not sitting for too long, it’s about how you sit, and the type of future you sit on and at.
We mentioned ergonomics earlier and this is certainly something to add into your professional office furniture repetoir. This means that employees can adjust their chair according to their needs, and they can raise the height of their desk if need be, to ensure they’re not looking down and causing neck ache or upper back pain, and that they’re not causing their wrists to be in the wrong position when typing for a long period of time.
The Agile Workspace
The agile workspace is a great addition to any office and one which ticks a lot of boxes in terms of getting the best out of your employees.
This is an office which is designed with the task in mind. For instance, an employee can go to work that day and decide where they’re going to sit in order to complete the specific task they have to do. This means the task is done to the best of their ability but it also has a few other welcome side effects. An agile workspace has several zones, within it, and it can mean that employees work outdoors, grabbing the benefits of fresh air or natural light, and alongside other members of staff, which boosts the team working vibe of the office.
Opting for zones is a good idea here. This means your office will be separated into quiet zones, for concentrated work, and collaborative zones, for brainstorming and discussions. You will also have breakout areas, touchdown areas, and relaxation areas within the space, all separated using office dividers, acoustic panels, and the clever placement of other furniture pieces.
This also means that nothing is too far out of reach, and the entire office space is optimised for the working experience. Office storage is in the right place, the boardroom is located close by, and every member of staff has the choice to get up and move around when they need to. Can you see now how the agile workspace is ideal for banishing the sedentary workplace risks?
For a visual take on what an agile workspace looks like, check out this video, which gives you a tour of the agile Holiday Extras workplace.
By creating a workplace which staff feel comfortable in, which helps them focus and concentrate, and one which helps to get people moving around, you’re doing a lot to get even more from your employees.
Conclusion
And there we have it! Your journey into how to get the most out of your employees is almost complete.
We’ve covered a lot of ground, but we’re sure you’ll agree that the most important facets of this entire guide are based on speaking to humans as exactly that – humans.
It's easy to get caught up in targets, goals, deadlines, and policies, but at the end of the day, we’re dealing with human beings, just like you. As a manager, always speak to your employees as you would want to be spoken to. Treat everyone as you would want to be treated. These are things your parents probably told you when you were young, but they ring true throughout life, even in management!
Here at Calibre Office Furniture we’re keen to push forward the message that getting the most out of your employees isn’t about forcing them to work harder with stringent targets, it’s about supporting them, encouraging them, and inspiring them. At the end of the day, a good manager should be a role model, so getting the most out of them really starts with you, the person reading this guide!
By creating a comfortable and supportive working environment with high quality, premium office furniture, you’re also helping to look after their health and wellbeing. Office workers are prone to many different health issues, all because of the amount of time sat at a desk and the way in which we tend to sit. Most of us slouch, but giving advice on correct posture and what not to do may be able to save one of your employees from developing lower back pain.
It can be that simple. It’s all about encouragement and awareness.
By ensuring that you focus on your employees and their wellbeing, you’re halfway there. From that point, it’s about helping them to achieve their potential, giving them what they need to really push themselves forward and achieve. By doing that, they’re far more likely to stick with you than go somewhere else. This cuts down on your need to re-recruit and train up someone else.
Put simply, getting the most out of your employees is a winning formula for everyone involved, and it’s not that difficult to do!
Thank you for reading!