As business owners, we all know we have a careful eye on our expenses so how can you make sure you are motivating and engaging your staff without decreasing that all important bottom line?
You may be surprised to hear this, but the answer is simple. Focus on having more fun at work! Fun is actually the key success factor for any business, Fun with a capital “F” though, Real Fun! Research is supporting this; staff are not motivated by money, or a Rolex watch. Real motivation and engagement of people (staff) comes from something else entirely.
All fun, all the time
At this point, I can imagine many of you are arguing that this may be true in other industries, but in the retail industry – it is all about the cash. However, let me ask you this: What gets you out of bed every morning, what gets you excited? Think back to a time when you had the most fun in your work, the most memorable, engaging, exciting Fun days you’ve experienced. Was it the day you got paid or was it something else entirely?
- Was it the time you opened your shop?
- What about the day you and your staff worked together like troopers to get the store reorganised and ready for the launch of that new product range?
- Or maybe it was the day that you and your staff broke a sales record for the first time in months?
So why do you think that your staff’s experience is any different? So let’s focus on making our businesses more fun, Real Fun! Ideas include:
We have Real Fun in business when: ( do you mean currently have fun if these things happen?)
- Customers return and drag their friends along with them.
- Everyone in the business is proud of the product of the business.
- People get to do the stuff they feel is important to them.
- There is a strong culture of “giving back”.
- The business is actively engaged with its community.
- The business is flexible enough to manage around the individual needs of the people.
- We win new and exciting contracts and find new challenges.
- We feel part of something bigger.
Here are some great steps you can take to increase the amount of fun; REAL FUN, you and your staff experience at work:
- Get absolutely clarity about the Purpose of your business, why it exists on this earth and why anybody else would care about that.
- Be sure to share this purpose with your staff, and explain why it makes a difference to them.
- Engage your staff in setting goals for your business.
- Instigate regular planning sessions to share with staff the progress you are making towards achieving the goals.
- A great idea is to start to think of your business and staff as as playing a game of soccer. Now if you are the coach, what do you need to do to encourage your team to perform better and win?
- Never forget we are and we need to be part of a wider community. Paradoxically, one the most effective ways to engage your staff is to actively support a charity or community organisation. This just doesn’t mean sending money; it means volunteering and getting involved hands on with the charity. There are many studies showing the beneficial impact of this on staff engagement.
The law of attraction…
Make having fun the key success factor in your business and not only will it change your life for the better, you may just end up making more money than you ever thought possible.
And lets face it…making money is a whole heap of fun!
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Roland Hanekroot is a business coach and the founder of New Perspectives Business Coaching. Roland runs a webinar called “The Small Business Masterminds” every month. Find out more, here: http://
smallbusinessmasterminds.com. au
