Building and running a successful startup is every entrepreneurs dream but not everybody’s piece of cake. Though there are numerous start ups working to ground themselves in the markets of various industries globally, not all of these achieve unicorn status.
The ones that do are often those who have a clear trajectory or path to follow as well as well placed organizational structure and ethic. Among the many challenges startup owners may face, building the right team according to sources is one of them.
1. Building the Team
Many of you already know that building an adept team requires employee retention. If people who join your workforce and train with you do not stick around, it’s back to square one with a new hire. Apart from being a drain on company resources, high turnover means no one sticks around long enough to reach a point of optimal function.
Employee motivation is important not just for retention and team building but also by way of productivity. There is a lot of research out there today that elaborates on how motivation or a lack of may impact employee performance.
Where keeping employees motivated improves productivity and helps with retention, a lack of motivation damages individual and hence overall productivity at your workplace.
2. Trust and Autonomy
There was time when grilling employees and micromanaging was the way to go. No longer. That isn’t the kind of work ethic you would expect to see in a successful company. Such an approach is more commonly observed in mid-tier, badly managed organizations as well as those with archaic procedures of operating.
Most of successful organizations today offer employees the autonomy to make certain calls and decisions. Hiring comes with a degree of trust. This trust and a degree of freedom to exercise certain actions helps employees feel responsible. This sense of ownership translates to motivation to do a job well. Employees working for employers who are pleased with them and have faith in their work, usually make the effort to keep things that way. Trust your employees and give them a degree of organizational autonomy within the boundaries of their expertise. This will help motivate them.
3. Clarity Regarding Expectations
All jobs come with certain expectations and demands. In most successful organizations, these are clearly stated and adhered to. If you’re clear with employees from the get go about what you expect from them, they will find it easier to live up to the same.
Avoid adding extra responsibilities without prior discussion. Be clear on what you want on a project by project basis as well as on a larger scale. Give your employees clear deadlines and other details regarding what you expect and don’t give them a hard time about things you didn’t specify you wanted done unless the same are extremely obvious!
When an employee is clear on tasks, seeing them through well becomes easy. When tasks are successfully completed, employees feel motivated to continue working well.
4. Positive Feedback, Acknowledgment and Reward Systems
Human beings can be simple creatures and sometimes all it takes to really motivate an employee is a pat on the back! If an employee does a job well, let them know you noticed. If your company is not at the stage to provide monetary rewards like bonuses, that’s okay. You can still tell people you were happy with their work verbally, maybe post something for them on your office news board or simply send them out for a company paid meal. The little things work too!
If your employees know that the good work they are doing for you isn’t going unnoticed, this works as a huge source of motivation.
5. Flexibility, Employee Wellbeing and Playing to Strengths
There are certain individuals who thrive in rigid nine to five settings and others that require a little more flexibility when it comes to their method of working. What many leading organizations have now begun to understand is how allowing flexibility helps people achieve peak performance.
If you have employees who are meeting targets, delivering on the work you assign and generally pulling their weight in the organization, don’t be petty when it comes to flexibility. Be supportive in emergency situations and take interest in your employee’s individual wellbeing.
Apart from individual employee wellbeing, take an interest in the work people are doing. If you can figure out what different employees are good at you can play to their strengths. Playing to employee strengths raises productivity. Apart from this, playing to strengths means successful completion of tasks. Such workplace success in turn serves as a huge motivating factor.
If you allow mindful flexibility to those deserving, play to their strengths and take a genuine interest in their wellbeing it will boost their morale. This way, they not only just feel safe and looked after them but also feel useful and relevant.
6. A Clear Growth Ladder
Finally, no employee will be motivated to work for an organization where there is limited potential for growth. When we say growth, this could be monetary as well as by way of organizational position. Offering one or the other is usually motivation enough however there are employees who may seek both.
Whatever the case, make sure there is room for growth and prosperity. Don’t short change your employees on increments. Give those deserving promotions when the time is right. Make sure people working for you know that if you and the business grow, so will they.
Do this and people will want your startup to thrive, not just for your sake but also for their own!
Winding Down
Offer your employees trust and autonomy. Be clear with regards to what you want from them. Don’t be stingy with positive feedback and try to reward or acknowledge performance that is exceptional or even commendable. Take an interest in who your employees are and what they do well so you can play to their strengths. Don’t be afraid to delegate. Make preparations so that a clear growth ladder is evident.
Finally, don’t be a boss, be a leader!
Follow these steps and chances are your employees will stay motivated and stick around resulting in steady growth and higher productivity at your startup!
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Till next time folks!
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