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How You Can Get The Most Out Of The People That Work For You

When you start your business, the chances are that it started with just you doing everything. You may have handled the accounts, the sales and the marketing side of things, not to mention the packaging and distribution of items.

So when your business starts to progress it is understandable that you start to outsource and eventually have your own staff amongst your team. 

This is an exciting time for any business owner, and it can precedent real change when it comes to the growth of your venture and the next steps that you want to make. However, having staff working for you can be quite a bit different than just making your own time and thoughts.

So how do you get the most out of the people that are working for you? With that question in mind, here are some of the ways you can. 

Making the environment safe to work in 

One of the first things you could consider doing would be to make the environment safe to work in and a health and safety policy is one of the best ways you can do it.

Putting together something like that incorporating occupational health processes can help to ensure that the environment in which your staff work in is a safe environment for them to be in. You will also want to take on extra risk assessments to ensure that things are not changing.

There other types of inspections to do,especially when there is equipment involved, such as puwer inspections. These things can be much more assuring to the people working in these environments.

People want to feel safe and able to do their jobs and these sorts of guidelines help you as the employer as well as the people that work for you do exactly that. 

Helping people to achieve the best of themselves

You also want to ensure that you can help people achieve the very best of themselves and you can do that by regularly catching up with them, having meetings about their targets and goals and also helping them to develop their career further.

Knowing where they stand on these things not only helps them, but it also keeps you on the frontline of your business and can help you to project results for the future and plan the next steps of your business.

A great way to help them achieve the best is to have regular meetings, and setting goals that they can work towards. This gives you something to work towards and also helps you to highlight any issues there may be, so they can be worked upon instead of worried about. 

Ongoing training

Could you do more to help the people that work for you? Offering ongoing training can help to refine skills and keep people knowledgeable about certain aspects of your business.

Not only that, but it can also help your staff to develop their career further and progress within your business. Ongoing training can be something that you arrange for outside of the workplace, or it might be that you look at compiling some training yourself and delivering it within working times.

It would all depend on the thyme of business that you have, as some industries may require specific accreditation’s. 

Being approachable for all aspects of working life

Sometimes it can be difficult to see beyond your own problems. You have a business to run and things to be getting on with, not to mention your own personal life. But as an employer, you do need to understand that people need to feel able to speak to you about their concerns and issues.

You need to understand, be flexible and also lend an ear to their problems, be that work or personally. Sometimes personal life can affect working life, and when people feel like they have the support and understanding of their employer in most cases there can be little impact to you.

Of course, you may want to do all that you can to encourage people to leave their personal life away from work, but often there can be severe circumstances when this can not be the case, and they may need additional support from you as an employer. 

Moving the business forward

Finally, you need to be able to move your business forward and get the most out of people, and that means that you need to be an understanding employer and also care about the future of your staff.

Moving your business forward often means you need a good team behind you, so build the foundations for that. This can be a difficult thing to master,especially if you haven’t managed people before. However, taking some time to work on your own leadership skills could be a step in the right direction. 

Let’s hope that these tips help you get the most out of the people that work for you. 

PM Today Contributor
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