When you first made the decision to become a business owner, you knew you had to come up with a budget, devise marketing strategies, and focus on customer needs… it never occurred to you what it would take to build a strong team behind your brand.

As important as employees are to every business, hiring them is oftentimes the last thing on an entrepreneur’s to-do list up until they actually need them.

The thing to understand about entrepreneurship is that there’s not one business owner who completely did everything by themselves… they had help along the way.

Employees are the foundation of many businesses, and in order to get the most out of your team and for your business to be successful, you’re going to have to invest in them. Investing in your employees can be done in many different ways. But whether you have a team of 10 or 30, it’s not going to be an easy feat.

When you group different people with different personalities together, there will eventually be some clashings of personalities, miscommunications, and differences of opinions…this are to be expected. But as the owner of the business, it’s up to you to have measures in place so that when conflicts do arise you can handle it with grace and it doesn’t affect the overall efficiency and productivity of the workday.

Nonetheless, whether conflict arises or not, the key to success is to be proactive in minimizing conflict in the workplace before it even happens. To build an effective and productive team, here are some efforts you need to make as a business owner managing your team.

Create a Healthy and Positive Work Environment

Many people don’t realize it but the environment you work in plays a significant role in just how productive you are. If your office area and desk is full of clutter, it can be a huge hindrance to the psyche.

Papers laying around, food, TV, and music are all potential distractions to your employees. But then again, you have to gauge your employees to see what type of office environment plays to their productivity. Maybe providing coffee and snacks in the breakroom adds to their productivity; Maybe lightly playing classical music is something that makes them work more efficiently…

Ultimately, creating a healthy and positive work environment for your team is going to require you getting to know them as well as their likes and dislikes.

Incorporate Team Building Exercises

Productivity within your team is going to rely heavily on camaraderie among the employees. Do your employees get along with each other? If not, it’s typically because they don’t know each other too well. This is when it’s important to incorporate various team building activities.

Team building is an excellent way to help employees get to know their co-workers and boost the overall office environment… plus it’s fun! You can do these exercises outside of the office and at the office as well, but the overall purpose and goal of it is to eliminate any grudges or judgments among team members to create a harmonious and productive work environment.

Understand the Strengths and Weaknesses of Your Team

In being the owner of a business, you hired each individual member of your team because they had certain strengths you were looking for. But in hiring them for their strengths, you don’t always find out during the hiring process what their weaknesses are, and because of that, you have to become a mentor to your team and find out their strengths and weaknesses.

By finding out the strengths and weaknesses of your employees, it’s going to help you better divvy responsibilities. Maybe you hired an employee for accounting but discover she’s not good at drafting contracts. This may force you to get creative in your thinking. Maybe you just let her stick to numbers and then let your other team member handle drafting contracts for you…

It’s all very doable, especially if you have a solid team; you just have to have a clear understanding of your employees’ strengths and weaknesses to run your business more efficiently. Having the wrong people handling the wrong responsibilities will only slow productivity down.

Invest in Project Management Software

Project management software is going to be key in ensuring all employees are on the same page, which, in turn, boosts productivity and efficiency. It also allows you to track productivity and efficiency as well. Everything from sales projections to group chats, this type of software is the complete solution for workplace miscommunications.

Source: Baucemag