Importance of Happy Employees

By on January 4th, 2010

Building a business on loyalty

Building a business on loyalty

In my recent posts on questions to be constantly asking yourself as the owner of a small business (10 Questions to Keep Asking About Your Business and  Readers Respond: Questions to Ask About Your Business), the area I seemed to miss was in regard to employee satisfaction. Yet, this is a critical component to the success of your business, and deserves a significant amount of attention.

As a small business owner, you have few employees, and know each and every one of them by first name. They are, in essence, the family of your business. However, unlike your biological family, who are always part of the family, these people can come and go as they please. As a result, it is up to you to ensure that they stay around. The most effective way to do that is not to pay them more.

Money will only buy you so much loyalty. Think about the recent recession, in which businesses were forced to cut costs in order to survive. At times like those, a business that has been buying the loyalty of its employees will find that this is an expensive endeavor, and attempt to cut expenses. If money was the only incentive for loyalty, then the employees will leave at the first opportunity.

As a small business, then, loyalty must be earned. This is done by providing each employee with what makes them truly happy. While a nice paycheck helps, other factors can come into play.

If you have an employee who is creative, are you providing an environment in which they can express themselves?

If another employee likes challenges, are you constantly pushing them to expand their horizons?

Each person has a different issue that they find to be important. As the owner of the business, it is your responsibility to determine what those issues are (if you aren’t sure, you should ask each employee what is important to them in a workplace besides for salary). If your employees are happy and motivated, then you will find their loyalty to hold strong through the thick and thin.

Related posts:

  1. Motivating Employees
  2. Managing Accounts Receivable
  3. Full Disclosure
  4. Are Your Customers Happy?
  5. Mixing Family and Business
Categorized under: Advice for Small Business Owners, Career, Motivation, work.
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  • http://topsy.com/tb/bit.ly/8uB6dy Tweets that mention Elie Kochman on Business and Networking » Importance of Happy Employees — Topsy.com

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Elie Kochman, Elie Kochman. Elie Kochman said: Reading about keeping employees happy: http://bit.ly/8uB6dy [...]

  • admin

    Cool! I found I also get several hits via Stumble Upon, although I don’t submit everything there. Yahoo Buzz is a new one for me, but I do submit some stuff to Digg.

  • http://bomshteyn.com Nathan

    Good post, food for thought…

  • http://blog.optimalupgrades.ca Elie

    Thanks! Once you've digested, I look forward to additional feedback :-)

  • http://bomshteyn.com Nathan

    Not related to this post, but in general. I found I am getting quite a few clicks from submitting my blog posts to Digg, yahoo Buzz and Twitter. I know you tweet but you are not using the other two, maybe this is something you should think about. (I submitted this post to those two)

  • http://blog.optimalupgrades.ca Elie

    Thanks for the submission. Didn't know about Buzz, I've added it to my list of sites to distribute on. I also use Sprouter for some of these articles, Facebook (my status as well as some groups I belong to), LinkedIn, Mashable, and Delicious via Ping.

  • Dr. Hung Tu Lo

    What do you think about work-related outings? Everyone in the company goes to a movie or bowling or picnic or something like that once a month. If it's a small company, it shouldn't break the bank (at least not as badly as a pay raise), and could help build tighter bonds between employees (just avoid too much alcohol).

    This might work better than trying to provide “an environment in which [the creative employees] can express themselves” because, let's face it, not all workplaces are that flexible. I doubt a factory can really give employees a great outlet for creativity. There's only so many ways to monitor an assembly line.

    Similarly, “pushing [unchallenged employees] to expand their horizons” might only be feasible if the current work orders requires it. When going through a period where the incoming contracts are simple (i.e. not challenging, no creativity required) but time consuming, you need to find other ways to keep people happy.

  • http://blog.optimalupgrades.ca Elie

    Absolutely, having your employees get together in a social setting can definitely help promote positive relationships. As you say, it doesn't have to be expensive (for example, a hike and a picnic once a month in the summer, bowling night in the winter).

    While you may not be able to provide outlets for creativity, you should be able to stop yourself from stifling it. As you say, there are only so many ways to monitor an assembly line, but let your employees choose which of those ways to do it. Allow them what flexibility that you can.

    It's not about always providing the outlets, but about providing them when you can, and try to keep open communication with your employees. If there aren't such opportunities at the moment, let them know what it is you are doing to change that, or when they can expect the environment to improve. Even that will help morale quite a bit!

  • http://lichtman.ca jeremylichtman

    This is a good point. Employees who feel like they aren't contributing, or feel left out of the main team effort are not going to be terribly motivated. Loyalty is a related – but in my opinion slightly separate issue – employers need to demonstrate that they will do what they say, and that they are listening to useful feedback.

    I've seen this issue from both sides: as an employee and an employer. Its not something to take lightly.

  • http://blog.optimalupgrades.ca Elie

    Certainly not to be taken lightly, and you make an excellent point about the difference between motivation and loyalty, and neither implies the other. Each has its own mechanisms and inspirations, and a good employer will pay attention to both.

  • http://www.ubervu.com/conversations/blog.optimalupgrades.ca/2010/01/importance-of-happy-employees/ uberVU – social comments

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by ekochman: Reading about keeping employees happy: http://bit.ly/8uB6dy...