16 Ways to Invest In Your Employees....Without Spending a Dime

1. Encourage Company Gossips. (Yes. Encourage company gossips.) The big difference  is...encourage them to spread good news.  The good news are the accomplishments and heroic acts and beyond-the-call of duty type efforts that too often go unnoticed, unrecognized, uncelebrated.  Lead the way. Spread gossip, openly and frequently, at company meetings: I heard so-and-so did this wonderful thing for this customer...or It’s come to my attention that x heroic deed was done by Y person.  I wrote on this in more detail at Can Company Gossips Serve to Inspire? at Small Business Trends.
2. Say Thank-you 5 times more per day. Use email, voice, voicemail, phonecalls, skype, handsignals....just say it.
3. Be specific in your thanks. Now take it one step further and tell the person specifically what they did and how that made you happy, your day easier, took a burden off your shoulder.
4. Make it a habit. Make sure you schedule appreciation or recognition as an agenda item in your meetings.
5. Publicize your employees' exploits. Tell your customers and partners and vendors how great they are.
6. Talk about them right in front of their face. Tell others about what they did, while they are standing right there.
7. Send hand-written thank-you’s. My wife just received one today. It made her day and mine, too when I read it. Note to self: Your employees have spouses. Make your employee happy and you’ve made two people happy. 
8. Flowers, candy, pastries, coffee...paid out of your pocket, work wonders.
9. Help them. Help them do their job. I regularly answered the calls on our sales or customer service line when they were busy. ( But, I stayed away from our servers.)
10. Be their defender. Always, always, always do this. Do it more.
11. Listen, listen, listen.  Honor the 2:1 ratio of ears to mouth.
12. Find their strengths. Then organize their job description to showcase those strengths.
13. Find what makes them happy and do the same. If they like talking with customers, make sure they talk to customers every day. If they like programming...make sure they can spend time doing that every day.
14. Make connections. Spend time connecting what they do with what it does for the those around them, for the company as a whole.  Show how their achievements make a difference with the company’s performance, overall and specifically in their area.
15. Document their successes. Put it in writing for them to show others. And for both of you to remember and celebrate later.
16. Make their reviews a celebration. If they’re not...take responsibility and ask yourself have you done everything here and more to insure they are a success.  At the very least, everyone in the company will see your commitment to that person’s success. At the best, you’ll find the proverbial diamond-in-the-rough at a cost much lower than hiring a new employee.

These are proven investments.  But unlike the risk : reward ratio of proven financial investments, there's no risk, but the rewards are the highest.

And as a small company you have an advantage. That advantage is you're small. You can start today to take any or all of these steps. Right now. And see immediate results. Right now.

That's a huge advantage.

And it won't cost you a dime.

Comments

[Paul Merrill]

Great post.

Spreading encouragement around is always a good thing!