“The way your employees feel is the way your customers will feel. And if your employees don’t feel valued, neither will your customers.” Sybil Stirshic
And Stephen Covey wrote:
“Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.”
I’m going to have the audacity to modify Stephen Covey! I would take it a step further and say: “Always treat your employees as you treat your best customers. With the same care, the same interest, the same respect.”
What would happen if the employees in your organization were treated this way? And, how do you do this?
In our Coaching, Motivating, and Engaging Employees workshop we talk about several ways, but one way is to consciously and consistently provide opportunity for your employees. For example, give them a chance to:
- Take part in decisions that impact their work–organizing their work and schedules, budgets, hiring, strategy setting
- Make a presentation to senior management or other visibility
- Fill in while you’re away
- Manage a team
- Have a clear growth and development plan
- Receive training/have the opportunity to learn new skills
- Teach others
- Be your representative in a meeting
- Sit in on a meeting
A few words about the last two: You may not see sitting in on a meeting as a perk(!), but let me tell a short story. A client recently told me about an admin in his department who asked if she could sit in on weekly meetings attended by their team of managers and the president. A bit reluctantly they agreed. Here is what the admin later told my client she got out of this opportunity:
- She quickly learned a lot about what was happening in their department. Think about how relatively little an admin or other employee may know about what is actually happening in your department and organization. Could they benefit and do a better job and feel more a part of the team if they were actively in the loop?
- She learned how to BE in meetings and learned how meetings were run.
- She was motivated. She said: “This is great. To let me do this, they must see potential in me.”
How else can you make your employees feel valued and be more valuable? Learn tons of other ways by providing your team leaders, managers, and supervisors with a Coaching, Motivating, and Engaging Employees workshop. For more information, click here.
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