Inspiring Your Employees in Productivity and Creativity

Inspiring Your Employees in Productivity and Creativity

By Samantha Garner, GoForth Institute

You’ve committed yourself to being a great manager of your small business. You want your team to love coming to work and you want them to be productive, creative and happy. Here are four ways you can inspire productivity and creativity in your small business.

Maintain an open door policy and brainstorm new ideas

Being a good small business leader is as much about the human touch as it is about building a successful business. Create an environment where your employees feel comfortable approaching you with concerns as well as great new ideas. Also, encourage informal brainstorming sessions on creative ways to increase business, such as a new ad campaign or streamlining a service. In these sessions, make sure to stay impartial and don’t veto or approve ideas on the spot. Keep your cool and encourage calm and rational discussion. Take each suggestion into consideration – even after your employees have gone home.

Give your staff proper training for continuous learning

Employees are much more likely to stay at a company where they feel they are always learning – after all, how much do you enjoy being stuck in a rut? At the start of employment and throughout their time with you, examine new and creative ways to train your people. There are many different training methods, like mentoring, web-based training, classroom or conference style training, videoconferencing and collaborative training. Computerized games are even making waves in employee training - Canon Inc. uses a simulation similar to the board game Operation to teach repair staff how to fix parts of a copier, resulting in a 5% to 8% improvement in training scores.

Champion recognition as well as accountability

Recognition is a very important way to get the best performance from your team. Congratulate your employees and recognize extra efforts as often as possible. If you receive positive feedback about a staff member from customers, let him or her know about it. Be sure that each employee feels their hard work is recognized and show them how their contributions have a direct effect on the company’s growth.

It’s important to not only recognize employees for their achievements, but to also hold them accountable for their slipups and letdowns. We know you hired the best people, but not many people work well in structure-free environments. Have penalties clearly set out for common issues such as tardiness and improper use of work time. Outline the most important conditions of employment. While you don’t want employees to feel babysat, you also want them to know what you expect from them. There is a fine balance between being too harsh and unapproachable, and being too easygoing and letting things slide. Find even ground, where you can lay down the rules and earn respect from your employees.

Encourage creative environments

Even if you don’t run a strictly “creative” business such as a design agency or photography studio, you can still encourage environments of creativity in the workplace. Time spent thinking can still be productive time – empower your team to use a certain amount of time to let their creative juices flow. You may have a specific issue in mind, or you may let your people think of new ways to innovate, position your business or design a better internal workflow. It may even be during an afternoon spent hiking that your receptionist has a great idea for a new sales strategy. This time can be during work hours, or you may decide to designate one afternoon a month for it.

Recent theories on motivation have suggested that it’s the need to learn and create that is behind motivation, rather than simply making money. Allow your employees to come up with innovative – or simple – solutions to create a great place to work and a strong business. They’ll see your leadership as one that values their brains and personalities, and they’ll love coming in to work every day and helping you drive your small business forward.

Samantha Garner is GoForth Institute's Director, Communications.  Contact Samantha by email: samantha@goforthinstitute.com

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