With a limited budget and space, small businesses shouldn’t feel pressurised to shell out on a premium coffee machine or a slide. Instead, businesses should re-examine how to make their employees’ lives easier. Will staff be happier when they’re working flexible hours? Or is it all about putting on monthly parties to show team members how valued they are? All offices have different ways of making employees happier, and sometimes it’s the little things that can make all the difference. We look at how some SMEs have transformed their offices to make employees feel comfortable, productive and happy at work:
Team building
According to James Berkeley of Ellice Consulting, team building is “a ridiculous waste of time.” He says that in many small businesses you don’t have a team, you have a common objective – be it profitable growth or expansion of the firm – that “unites the collection of individuals to work productively together.” Because of this, he believes that investment in team building is a waste of money.
Rather than “wasting” money on a collection of team building events, Berkeley suggests that fostering teamwork is largely dependent on the following: “The business focus is forward-looking, not tied to battles or shortcomings; involves everybody from the manager to the receptionist; the activities and tasks you ask people to do can be self-managed and self-directed; you give people freedom and you encourage people to take risks without censure.”
Yet Emily Moore, people director at Purple Cubed, disagrees. “It’s important that small businesses take the time to invest in some simple, low-cost morale boosting activities because they can deliver significant ROI in terms of productivity, engagement and turnover growth,” she says. “We ensure there are opportunities for our people to socialise and bond throughout the year. This varies from weekly drinks to an annual end of year celebration such as going to a music festival or even jetting off to Ibiza.”
Bryony Harris, who works as a receptionist for an SME that makes door handles, thinks that team building exercises can be a bit cringe-worthy. “I don’t want to be made to hold hands with my colleagues as we try to pin a tail on a donkey. The encouragement to go for a quiet drink at the end of the working week, an office where people offer to make teas and coffees, and a boss who is flexible if you need to go to the doctor or pick your kid up early. For small businesses, I think that’s the ideal.”
Enhancing happiness
Each company interviewed for this feature agreed that being made to feel worthwhile at work was imperative to happiness and productivity. Jerry Brand, CEO of Caternet, says: “Happy people are imperative to business success and everything I do within the business is constantly reinforcing that. This is coupled with achievable targets, good leadership and talking regularly with staff. I think you need to embrace the people you work with if you want them to work hard for you, let them express themselves individually in a way that works for them. Clarity of direction, hard work, listening skills and the ability to change if you need to are all essential leadership skills to keep your team happy and motivated.”
Diane Coolican is manager of Redsky, a learning and development specialist. Her opinion is that you need staff to be as committed as you are to the business, and the way to do this is to show, as manager, that you’re committed to your team. She says: “Develop them with skills to enable them to do their job to the best of their ability. Demonstrate you are committed to their current and future career, providing skills and support to grow them and, where possible, provide a career plan. Give them the skills to make their lives easier and to serve your customer better. You cannot transform your business alone, so you need your team to work with you, and to treat them as all having a critical input.”
She recommends celebrating success as a team before just moving onto the next project or client – that way staff know that you really care about the project. “For this, you should acknowledge what was achieved and how the team were critical to this. Know your people on an individual basis, know what makes them tick and motivates them and then demonstrate your commitment to them as individuals based on this knowledge.”
Communication is key
Communication seems to be what really makes staff feel at one in a team, and also enables people to keep on top of what is expected of them, and how to react if anything goes wrong. Nicola Cook is CEO of Company Shortcuts, and she provides sales and leadership training, advice and events. She says: “Keep communication flowing by perhaps setting up a Facebook group, or a regular Skype call. Relationships are fostered through the non-work related communication.”
Cook also advises creating projects that get people in the office working together. Small businesses can be more divisive than you think when you have one creative, one programmer, one CEO and one designer in the office. Bring everyone together by creating a project that needs the input of the whole team. Cook also touches on the value of team building within the office. These team building events don’t have to be forced fun; Cook says that ordering pizzas to the office will bring everyone closer together. “For teams in the same physical space, spot prizes such as scratch cards, cinema tickets or retail vouchers, or team rewards such as an unexpected early finish on a Friday and pizzas delivered to the office, work well as incentives but when shared as a team will help to bond them together.”
Content on this page is paid for and produced to a brief agreed with Xero, sponsor of the business essentials hub.
