Things EVERY Employee Should Learn from You

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StrategyDriven Management and Leadership Article | Productivity | Things EVERY Employee Should Learn from YouIf you want to be an effective business owner and manager, then you really do need to take your employees under your wing. There are numerous things that your staff need to know above and beyond their job role and any associated skills they need to do that job well.

If you want to get the most out of your employees, which will boost your business to untold levels, here are some things every employee should learn from you as soon as possible after they are hired:

Exactly Why They Were Hired

Okay, so your average employee is going to have a rough idea of why they were hired; usually it’s because they meet the criteria and have the skills that you need for the role, but is that the only reason you hired them? Chances are you chose your employee very carefully and not just because they have experience in email marketing or customer service.

If you also hired your employee because they were extremely confident, you found their academic background to be very impressive or you were blown away by the creativity they showed in their application, tell them! Why? Quite simply because it will do wonders for their self-esteem and show them that you truly value them.

When employees feel that they are appreciated, they tend to be more loyal to the company, happier in their work, and best of all for you, more productive too. You don’t have to go all out to flatter them, but if they impressed you in some way, do let them know!

StrategyDriven Management and Leadership Article | Productivity | Things EVERY Employee Should Learn from YouHow to Be Safe in the Workplace

In this day and age, you simply cannot hire someone new without teaching them how to be safe working in your business. Of course, although you should give them the basics, it may be a tad unrealistic for you to train them in all of the ways of health and safety. So, it makes sense for you to get an expert in to teach behavior-based safety, one to show how to use equipment safely and maybe even an occupational therapist to teach the health side of things, but YOU need to ensure that all of this information is in place to be learned as soon as possible. Fail to do this and you could have a serious problem on your hands.

How Clients Should be Treated

You wouldn’t have a business without your customers and clients who pay good money for the products/services you provide, so it really cannot be overstated just how important it is for you to teach your employees exactly how you expect them to treat your clients. You really need to lay out how they should be spoken to, looked after and related to if you want your business to succeed. If you can model the behavior you want to see when dealing with clients and employees, it is more likely to stick, so be a good boss, rather than one who is to be feared.

Teach them well and they will do amazing things for you!

Business Politics Landscape – Cultural Shaping of an Organization’s Business Politics Landscape

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StrategyDriven Business Politics Landscape Article | Cultural Shaping of an Organization’s Business Politics LandscapeAll organizations are political to some degree with their culture defining the predominant, acceptable political practices – the organization’s political landscape. This unique landscape represents where political activity takes place and the sources of power exerted, shaped by established activity controls and triggers respectively.

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Additional Information

For additional information regarding organizational cultures, see StrategyDriven’s Corporate Cultures Forum.

How To Create A Website That Will Impress Your Target Audience

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article | How To Create A Website That Will Impress Your Target AudienceA one-of-a-kind website is essential for impressing your target audience. Keep in mind that it is thanks to an audience that the goods and services your business offers are used.

Without an online presence, no one will know about your company’s mission, and nor will you stand to make any profit as a result of it. Thus, you need to have a website that allows you to market your brand properly, and leaves a strong impression on anyone that finds it.

The very first step is to hire individuals who are experts in web design and development. Moreover, you want to guarantee that it is user-friendly so that people can easily navigate it, and lastly remain consistent with the branding you set up for it. All of these tips will be further explained below.

With professional assistance

There are expert web designers for a reason, and they know exactly how to help you put together the ultimate website for your brand. There is no need to spend countless hours learning how to do it yourself from scratch.

You should also keep in mind there are certain agencies and individuals who specialize in your niche company needs. After all, if you are looking to grow your charity’s website, you want the assistance of a reputable company such as Charity Box, that knows exactly how to grow your specific brand.

Everything from the development and up-keep assistance can be tied back to hiring the best professionals for the task. More so, given that they are already knowledgeable on the subject, they have a good understanding over what has and has not worked for other companies in the past, and can reduce the amount of trial and error that you have to go through.

Ensure it is user-friendly

Is your website user-friendly? This can include the following factors:

  • Easy to navigate
  • Clear layout
  • Readable text
  • Simple payment methods

Imagine that an individual starts to browse your website, but they have a hard time understanding what you do. It could be that the layout is jumbled and disorganized, the text itself isn’t clear, among many other factors. Company reputation is important, and if people can’t spend more than 5 seconds on your site, you need to re-evaluate everything you put together thus far.

Remain consistent with your branding

Remaining consistent is also crucial to build stronger relations with your audience. Once enough time and marketing effort have been put into growing your company, people will start to recognize you even by simply seeing your business logo.

It is incredibly important that you don’t change courses out of the blue with your branding, as this will only confuse people and further ruin the relationship you built with them. All in all, your brand will suffer if you are not careful.

Remember, when you impress your target audience, you are also strengthening the relationship with those individuals. They will be so impressed with your content, that they will continue visiting your website to check for updates. You also want them to spread the word about your company, and the only way you can do this is if you create an online presence that is buzz-worthy.

Business Politics Impacts – Cost of Employee Productivity Loss

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StrategyDriven Business Politics Impacts Article | Business Politics Impacts – Cost of Employee Productivity LossUnseen millions are lost by companies every year; the result of employees withholding the full commitment of their physical, intellectual, and emotional contributions. Surveys conducted by the Gallup Organization identified an 18 percent difference in productivity between the best and worst performing companies.1 Yet, as we shall explain, even the best performing companies have room for improvement.

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3 Ways to Safeguard the Wellbeing and Productivity of Your Staff

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StrategyDriven Talent Management Article | 3 Ways to Safeguard the Wellbeing and Productivity of Your Staff | Manage Staff
 
As a business owner, you will almost certainly come to the point of needing to manage staff — assuming you aren’t there already. Though many businesses are born as single-person startups in the solopreneur-spirit, growth invariably brings with it the need for outsourcing of responsibilities.

Of course, managing staff is not necessarily a straightforward and pain-free matter. Unscrupulous and demotivated workers can cost you money, and excessive gossip and office politics can sour the entire nature of your business and reduce teamwork and joint productivity.

Among the many requirements of good team management is the ability to safeguard the wellbeing and productivity of your staff. Here are a few strategy suggestions for doing just that.

Allow them a degree of flexibility in terms of working hours and physical location

It’s a fairly well-agreed-upon idea that employees tend to work better, and be more invested in the overall success and wellbeing of the company at large, when they feel that they are being treated with a degree of respect and consideration by their employers.

The traditional office dynamic of arriving at a certain time each day, and clocking off at a certain time each afternoon, is still very much in place as a rule, but is starting to soften significantly, with many businesses allowing for flexible hours and remote working arrangements.

Incentivise your customers to work more diligently, and enjoy their work more, by allowing them a degree of flexibility over their time and location. This could mean allowing them to clock off for the day whenever they want, as long as they meet their targets. Or it could mean allowing them to work from home for a couple of days a week.

Sponsor them for training and educational courses and programs

Investing in your employees via sending or sponsoring them for training and certifications not only helps to improve their professional portfolio, thereby enhancing their well-being, but it also makes them more directly useful for you, as their employer — that is, assuming you run your business in such a way that people don’t want to flee as soon as they have other options available.

It might be that you’re flush with resources and can sign some of your senior people up for an online MBA, or it might be that you see the benefit in putting the whole office through first aid training.

In any event, supporting your staff with this kind of training can be a great way of boosting wellbeing and productivity.

Find ways to grant your staff a greater sense of meaning during the day — such as by empowering them to work on some of their own projects, some of the time

In recent times, many high-flying companies have famously opted to give their staff a greater sense of meaning and freedom during the day, by allocating a certain amount of their working time to personal projects.

This has been particularly prevalent in the tech industry, with Google famously having followed such a policy. The upshot of doing this is that your staff feel that their own creative impulses are better represented by the company, and that they have more breathing room to do meaningful — not just obligatory — work.