In this post pandemic era, every industry in Australia is experiencing the challenges of not only finding staff but getting staff to work and inevitably keeping them! Never has it been so important to take a good hard look at your business and really shine a light on whether you are setting your employees up for success or failure.
Introduction
As business owners, we don’t set out to make our staff “Fail” on purpose. However, sometimes we are so busy in the doing that we fail ourselves to take the time to understand what success means, why it’s important and how that might inadvertently set our staff up to fail rather than proactively setting them up for success.
“Success” is the accomplishment of an aim or purpose, a goal that both motivates and drives a person to perform. When your staff are consistently and efficiently performing, this will positively impact the team, the culture, your clients and ultimately your profit.
So, how do you proactively rock your staff success? It’s easy, go back to basics and follow these 7 simple (not so secret) secrets!
Secret #1 - Success starts before you hire
Skills can be taught, that’s why people go to school, university, tafe and do courses. What you can’t teach are people's Visions, Missions and Values (VMV’s) in life so by understanding your businesses VMV’s, you can search for people who are the right fit that primarily align with your meaning of success and then make sure they have the right skills.
“Success” is the accomplishment of an aim or purpose, a goal that both motivates and drives a person to perform. - Astrowave
Secret #2 - Make a fantastic impression
Staff are interviewing and/or reviewing you and your business as much as you are them so it’s equally important for you to be 100% present (Don’t have a wandering mind), make and retain eye contact, have body language that is open and relaxed and ask open questions that engage the person in casual conversation. Don’t get me wrong, it is important to have a checklist, stay on track and provide the same fair interview / review process to everyone BUT those are the foundations that enable you to make a fantastic impression and stay on the path to success.
Secret #3 - Get to know them
Whether you have new or current staff, taking the time to genuinely get to know them and deeply understand:
- What their goals are in life, both personal and career (Vision)
- What success means to them (Mission); and
- What’s important to them (Values)
This doesn’t have to be done by you as the business owner, it can be delegated and either way will help you, your team and your business to nurture, develop and synchronise success at all levels.
Secret #4 - Listen to understand NOT respond
People feel important when they have a voice. People feel empowered when their voice is heard. By providing an environment (Be that workshops, meetings, one-on-ones etc.) where staff are encouraged to:
- Set aside personal agendas, biases and points of views;
- Be patient and focused on the person talking;
- Ask open-ended questions to learn more; and
- Actively summarise what was spoken to confirm understanding.
Staff will feel comfortable to voice concerns, take ownership of mistakes and actively provide feedback and solutions towards continual success.
Get to know your team, this will help you and your business to nurture, develop and synchronise success at all levels.. - Astrowave
Secret #5 - Train for them to leave
Now this secret might be a challenging one to get your head around because as business owners, if we put all that time and effort into training our staff for success, we want to selfishly reap those rewards. However, it’s a bit of a catch 22 really, if you don’t train them and set them up for success then you’ll be left with a subpar staff member that actually costs you more in inefficiencies, mistakes and money. If you do take the time to train them for success (And follow secrets 1-4), then you are proactively increasing the chance of staff staying because of how successful they feel.
Secret #6 - Recognise Success
Whilst people feel important and empowered when they have a voice, they feel wanted and a pivotal part of a team when they are celebrated. This doesn’t have to be an elaborate awards ceremony (Though it totally can be if that’s what success looks like for you and your business), it can be as simple as a pat on the back, an unexpected coffee to say “Thanks” or a shout out during a meeting. The most important thing to keep in mind here is what “success” means to each staff member and recognising that for each individual will boost staff ego’s, promote team morale and you guessed it, get you rocking you staff success.
Secret #7 - Provide the right tools
There is absolutely nothing worse than trying to do a task / job / project and not having the right tools to be successful. An essential tool that we find extremely valuable is cloud based software that helps you actively manage not only your business compliance but your people (HR) compliance. In this day and age of being cloud based, there are many options for Business & HR software so it’s important to understand:
- What problem are you trying to solve?
- What features does the software NEED to have in comparison to WANT to have
- What does the software support look like (AKA Can you talk to a real person or just a chatbot?)
- What is your budget?
Being able to provide a seamless, consistent and efficient onboarding and ongoing management experience will hands down rock your staff success and ultimately the success of the business when it comes to your number 1 asset, your staff!
Understanding what “success” means to each staff member and recognising that for each individual it may be different. - Astrowave
If you are keen to give your business a boost and blast your staff success into the Galaxy, contact us today!