June 18th, 2015
Ensuring high levels of employee engagement is a major issue for small businesses. With a skills gap making it hard to recruit replacements, it’s more vital than ever to keep your key staff and stop them being wooed away by larger companies. One recent study estimated that employees who don’t feel fully engaged are three times as likely to leave their current roles, so fostering enthusiasm is essential to avoid losing them.
Making sure that employees are fully involved can also boost productivity and so contribute to your company’s success. While larger businesses have obvious attractions as places to work, SMEs also have advantages of their own. Many firms have found that making the most of these can help to promote motivation and commitment.
Growth and Training Opportunities
The existence of a clearer career path may be perceived as an advantage of working for a larger company. Yet in practice many people progress faster at smaller companies and achieve responsible positions more quickly. This is because the less formal set-up at an SME is likely to offer more opportunity to staff to get involved in different areas. With only a small team, there’s less danger of becoming stuck in a repetitive job and unable to develop.
However, staff will only be able to master new skills if they get enough training. Small companies therefore need to keep an eye on career development and ensure employees don’t feel they need to go elsewhere to learn new areas of the job. If you don’t feel able to invest in sending staff off to formal training programmes, it’s often possible to do a lot of training within the workplace. This type of learning is also likely to be tailored more closely to the exact skills needed for your particular business.
Flexibility
Small companies have embraced flexible working faster than larger ones. The law recently changed to give more employees a right to request flexible hours, not just parents. However, research shows more than 75% of SMEs were ahead of the game, and already offering this kind of arrangement.
Because small firms tend to be less hidebound and have less of an organisational mindset, they tend to be open to exploring new ways of doing things, whether it’s job-sharing, part-time working or letting a worker be based at home all or part of the time.
Being open to changing work patterns can help to avoid losing the talent you need for your business, as flexibility makes it easier for people to combine work with caring responsibilities. It could also make staff more enthusiastic and committed to the company, as a good work-life balance is something that tends to be highly valued. One recent survey by Vodafone found that flexible working options can improve employee satisfaction, leading to greater staff retention and helping productivity.
Communication and Input
One of the main attractions of working in a small company is that there is a greater opportunity to make a difference. It’s more likely that staff in a small team will have a direct line to bosses and be able to communicate their ideas.
Companies can make staff feel more positive and involved by encouraging their input, for instance by holding informal meetings or brainstorming sessions, or just by making it clear that new ideas will be welcomed. Within a small business set-up, staff are more likely to see the end result of their work, rather than each project going through a whole chain of command and different departments, and this will also create a feeling of achievement.
Rewards and Perks
While small businesses may not be able to offer large bonuses, research has shown that just small rewards can help to make staff feel appreciated. It could be something as simple as bringing a fruit bowl to the office on a regular basis, or maybe taking staff out to lunch to celebrate a particular contract or achievement.
Some small companies are enrolled in employee benefit schemes, which may include childcare vouchers, discounted gym memberships, private health care and various other options. If you’re thinking of signing up to one of these schemes, it’s a good idea to talk to other companies which already use them about levels of uptake and which benefits have proved popular with staff.
Positive Working Environment
A positive working environment is one of the most essential aspects of creating an engaged workforce. A healthy workplace and ergonomic workstations are part of this, as is an office design created with the needs of employees in mind. Even if you only have limited office space, it’s important for staff to have the opportunity to network, for instance by chatting during a coffee break or at the water cooler. Sometimes this type of informal get-together can lead to a good business idea.
Basepoint business centres have many advantages to help small companies keep staff fully engaged and motivated. The centres offer a good working environment, with many support facilities within the building, including breakout areas and availability of serviced meeting rooms. There are also numerous opportunities for networking and meeting up with people from other small businesses.
