a winning happy loyal office team

Building a Winning Team In Business

a winning happy loyal office team

BUILDING A WINNING TEAM IN BUSINESS

Managing people at work is one of the challenges for business owners and managers. But without a motivated and loyal team, it’s very difficult to succeed in business. It’s a cliché, but it is so true – the most important asset of any organisation is its people!

A great team of people can do wonders for your business.  They can promote, sell, produce, and deliver your products and services to the world to make your company succeed and grow.  On the other hand, they can bring your company down if they fail to perform and become disloyal.  So while you may have a great product and good systems in place, you need performing and loyal people to make it all happen for your business.  Below I have outlined some ingredients for building a high performing team.

Hiring

Apart from the necessary skills and qualifications, the most important attribute to look for is their personal values.  Does the person have similar values to your business values?  For an employee to understand and support your business goals and mode of operation, they need to have similar values.  Of course, people can learn to adopt your business values with time, but it just takes more effort and if they don’t, then it’s going to be a mismatch between you and them.

Staff responsibilities

People need to know what their job is about.  This includes their responsibilities, level of authority and standard of performance.  These need to be made explicit.  A good way to do this is to put it in writing.  This could be in the form of a job statement and performance targets where performance can be objectively measured.  Documenting these requirements provides a reference point, for when people forget or get distracted by urgent matters.  Without a reference point, it’s easy for people to stray from their responsibilities and performance. 

Many times I’ve heard staff complain about not knowing what is expected of them by their managers.  It’s frustrating for them, and it leads to wasted time and effort in discussions about what people are supposed to be achieving at work.

Motivating

The vast majority of people come to work wanting to do a good job and support their company.  To help them to do this, it is very helpful to explain what your business is trying to achieve.  It is beneficial to your vision, goals, values and strategies with them.  When people know the ‘game plan’, they will be more motivated to support your business.

When things are not going so well for the business, be honest with them, and share as much information as possible. From my experience, people are more understanding when bad news about company performance is shared with them and therefore more likely to will support your cause when things are tough.

Involving

Involve your staff in the business as much as possible.  The best way to do this is to ask for their ideas about improving the business.  Most employees have ideas at some time or another, but without a process to suggest those ideas, they are often not presented.  Authentically considering employees’ ideas is motivating in itself. The ideas will also help to drive improvement and innovation within a company. See my blog on innovation on my website for more detail at www.johntedesco.com.au

Recognising and rewarding

When staff do a good job or suggest ideas that lead to improvement they should be recognised.  Recognition in the form of verbal or written praise costs little but is very powerful.  Modest material rewards are also low cost but send a powerful message to staff that they are valued. The power is not in the cost of the reward but in the action of formally rewarding someone.  Examples of modest rewards is a dinner for two at a local restaurant or a family pass to the movies. It needs to be relevant and suitable for the individual. 

Skilling

It’s important to train your staff.  This includes the areas of technical skills relevant to your company, people skill such as communication, and knowledge about the company.  The latter includes aspects discussed above such as company goals, strategies and even finances!  The more people know about what and how you want to operate your business, the more likely they will support you and perform.  It’s just how we operate as humans.

Counselling

When people are not performing, they first need to be told and given the opportunity to improve.  Giving people a chance to recover their performance is good for the person and signals to the other staff that you are a fair and just manager. This will gain your respect and loyalty  If you are not sure what to do, then get some expert help on how formally manage these situations.  The worst thing you can do is ignore poor performance and misbehaviour. It becomes infections and demoralising for other staff.

So in summary managing people at work can be challenging, but it can also be very rewarding because allows you to build a high performing team to help your business succeed.  The focus should be on building a team of people that support your goals, act according to your company values and feel that they will be treated fairly. 

For help with developing a high performing team within your business, contact me at 0402 843314 or john@johntedesco.com.au

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