Your Staff… Keeping the Cogs Happy

By Sonya Winterbotham

You might build the machine but they are the cogs that keep it turning… Staff.  

They’re as important to your brand, and your profits as the product or service you sell.

Staff are really just types of “customers”… If their personal experience factor is positive, and they get a good deal – they come back.  If they don’t - they go somewhere else.

And just like customers, with staff you have your relational employee and your transactional employee.  The transactional employees are just as volatile as transactional customers – they stay for the pay packet alone… If they get a better offer from your competition, your front door will be swinging to the sound of farewell.  

Relational employees – are keepers.  These guys are as loyal as your four legged friend… Treat them right and build a relationship beyond pay day Friday and they will stick with you through cloudy and clear days.  Relational employees are the ones that will stand and fight for your name and reputation at any weekend barbecue, dinner party or pub night discussion.  Their family and friends will all do business with you… Their doctor, dentist, mechanic and grocer will probably do business with you too.  They will come to work happy, and be happy to work late… Because they feel and live part of your brand.

How do you keep relational employees?  The same way you keep relational customers.  

1. Be sure you know their expectations… Meet them and your doing ok, surpass them and you’re on a winner. 
   
2. If you let them down… Be quick to fix the error… What would you do if a customer was disappointed with less than perfect service?  Go above and beyond to keep them?  Same rule applies for staff.
   
3. Know what motivates them… The bottom line isn’t always about price, so relational employers aren’t all about the pay packet.  Consider other ways to “value add” and make them happy.  It might be movie tickets, a bottle of wine, a new office chair, a few nails in the wall so they can finally put their awards on show.
4. Be a discerning boss… staff don’t complain… not to you anyway.  Keep your eyes and ears to the ground.    
5. And never treat your staff like they “work for you”… it’s not a divorce where you’re deciding who owns the furniture… Your staff are there only because they’ve decided they want to be.
   

These are the cogs that will keep your business and bottom line growing… Good staff are worth keeping… and that means… they’re worth keeping happy.

 

How are you treating your staff?