Building a good relationship with your employees is so important to business success. If your employees are only listening to you because you’re the boss and they have to, they’re not going to be very motivated. It’s important that you earn their respect and they share your vision for the business if you want them to be productive. If you’re struggling to motivate your team, it might be because they don’t respect you. These are some of the best ways to change that.
Respect Them
Respect is a 2 way street and if you’re not being respectful toward your employees, they’re not going to respect you either. If you treat your employees like resources and not people, and you overwork them without any regard for their health or their personal lives, they’re not going to be productive. It’s important that you treat your employees as human beings and offer them the same respect that you would anybody else. When you do that, your employees will reciprocate that respect and work harder for you.
Get More Qualified
Your business background might be an issue if you don’t have that much experience. You might have managers working under you that are actually more experienced than you and so they wonder why they should be listening to you. But if you can get some business qualifications, your employees will be more inclined to respect you as a business owner. If you don’t have any formal training, you should consider taking an online MBA program in your spare time. You’ll learn a lot of useful information about how to run a business and it will lend you more legitimacy in the eyes of your employees.
Communicate More
The easiest way to build a good relationship with employees is to communicate with them effectively. If you’re open with people about the business, they’ll feel as though they’re an important part of the company and you respect them enough to involve them in business operations. Holding regular meetings to speak with employees about how the company is getting on and ask them whether they have any issues is always a good start. You should also take some time to walk around the office from time to time and just check in with people. It shows that you’re invested in them and you’re always looking for ways to help them do their jobs more effectively.
Be More Reliable
You expect your employees to arrive on time and meet deadlines, but if you don’t hold yourself to the same standards, your employees won’t have any respect for you. It’s important that you practice what you preach and try to be as reliable as possible. You also need to meet your own deadlines. Sometimes, that’s not going to happen and that’s fine as long as you acknowledge it and apologize to any employees that have been affected by your failures.
If you don’t have the respect of your employees, they’re just going to turn up to work and do the bare minimum so they can collect their paycheck. But if they actually respect you, they’ll be invested in the success of the business and they’ll be a lot more productive.
