If It Weren't For Employees, This Would Be Easy!

I've heard so many variations of this from small business owners:

      If it weren't for employees, running a business would be easy.

      I spend way too much time dealing with petty employee matters.

      Why can't they just do their job?

Unfortunately, running any kind of business where your customers pay you for deliverables generated by employees means having to deal with human beings. It's easy to understand why large companies are using robots, technology and automation whenever and wherever they can. Robots don't get sick, don't have petty jealousies, are never in a bad mood and are programmed to do one thing - the company's work.

People are much more complex. Most work to live, unlike their bosses, who live for their work. But one thing that these troubling employees and their bosses have in common is that they are both primarily motivated by their own self-interests. This is where bosses miss the plot so often - they can't understand why the employee isn't as motivated to achieve the bosses goals as the boss is. 

Bosses are typically motivated by money - that's why they started a small business to begin with - to work for themselves and create an opportunity to earn more than they could working for someone else. Your employees, however, may not be motivated nearly as strongly by money as you are. That may be why your efforts to incentivize the behaviors you want primarily through monetary rewards may not be working.

Business owners will benefit from pausing to think about what motivates their employees to come to work. Or more importantly, what motivates them to give discretionary effort. Understanding what motivates the individual employee will give you the opportunity to create a culture that stimulates star performance from that individual. Assuming that everyone is motivated by the same things you are motivated by may result in a sizable chunk of your workforce being misaligned with the rewards you've established. And aligning the rewards of the job with the motivators of the individual is the key ingredient to employee engagement.

How do you find out? You could just ask them... Or, you can contact The Davidson Group and we can help you assess what's working and what's not with your workforce.