Motivating your employees to maintain enthusiastic attitudes can benefit you in many ways. Businesses with happy employees enjoy increased production and more profits. They have less theft and more satisfied customers. When your employees are happy, your whole company can be happy. But it’s about more than just making them smile, you want to actually motivate them to work. It is work, after all, not a party! Use these tips for motivating your employees and keeping them satisfied with their jobs.
Avoid Boredom
Working in a retail store or boutique can be fun and exciting or extremely boring and uneventful. Giving your employees jobs to do when no one is shopping in the store will keep their brain active. You’ll help them to avoid exhaustion, boredom, and job dissatisfaction by giving them something positive to work on. Have you ever heard the saying, “An idle mind is the devil’s playground”? Well, keep that in mind if you don’t have a plan for keeping your employees busy during down times. Give employees specific areas to keep straight and clean. Let them work on contests and promotions. Let them come up with creative ways to showcase products around the store.
Acknowledgement
Acknowledge when your employees do a good job. Point it out when someone is always on time. Come up with a reward system. Give a pin or star to the employee that is caught going above and beyond for a customer. Let your management team reward employees in this way, being sure that everyone is chosen at some point or another for their strengths. A simple, genuine comment is still a manager’s most powerful weapon. Remember that you’re managing people, not a machine. People need feedback, acknowledgement and attention to perform well and feel fulfilled in their jobs.
Reward
Rewards in the form of money are always welcome! However, rewards that make people proud can be more effective. Set up in-house contests for interesting display ideas. Use a picture of the winner’s display in your newsletter or place an award near the actual display. Let employees compete for extra break-time, longer lunches, gift cards, movie tickets, whatever you think they would really work for.
Respect
Make your employees feel respected by periodically asking their opinions. When the boss asks a low level employee how to make their job better, they feel like someone actually cares. You can gain valuable feedback simply by having people fill out questionnaires. You need to know when trouble is brewing in the minds of your employees. Save yourself and your business the hurt by simply asking before it becomes a problem.
About the Author:
John Garvey is on the staff of Only Garment Racks, a leading online source of garment racks including clothing racks. Find a high quality garment rack or clothing rack at http://www.onlygarmentracks.com.