Scaling Your Business Successfully
Scaling your business can be challenging. It can affect everyone from the executive management team to the most junior employee.
Growth and scaling can provide instability, lack of faith in leadership and employee turn over. All of these events can have a negatively impact your business. Here are a few tips on how to
scale successfully for your employees and your business to provide stability and success.
Annoying Office Quirks and Productivity
Every office has something annoying or broken in it that has the potential to drive employees crazy and reduce productivity. It seems like small deficiencies in the office environment shouldn't reduce productivity, but you would be surprised at how much the little things about an office environment that can reduce employee motivation and productivity. Office quirks are alright, but office deficiencies can be disruptive. A new survey from
Expert Market detailed the top 10 most annoying office deficiencies, here are our top 3.
The Importance of the Employee Suggestion Box
The employee suggestion box may seem like an antiquated concept. Who is going to drop a crumpled up piece of paper into a box, or send and email to an anonymous email address? With that attitude, no one. However,
Hugh Molotsi, VP of Innovation at Intuit Labs, believes that employee ideas can be the most underutilized tool in an employer's innovation strategy.
Here's the scenario: Your company encounters a large organizational issue. Senior management can't solve it. So, the organization spends thousands, if not millions, to bring in a consultant to try to solve the problem. It may work in the long-term, but how can you ensure ROI on such a huge investment? Alternatively, you could pose a brainstorm contest or competition (
think like a hack-a-thon) to your employees, spend a couple hundred dollars bringing in lunch or dinner for the staff, and empower your
employees to find the fix. Not only have you saved an enormous amount of money, but you've given your employees the opportunity to have a
direct impact on shaping your organization. An employee suggestion can turn into real solutions to problems and real improvements in your organization, without bringing in expensive and sometimes disruptive consultants. Do you invite your employee suggestion into organization strategy sessions or problem solving exercises? If you don't, it might be time to consider a change in 2015.
Fantasy Football Can Increase Employee Engagement
According to a recent study from Quantum Workplace's Best Places to Work research panel, employee engagement is higher among those employees who participate in Fantasy Football with their coworkers. With the Super Bowl coming up, it’s not too late to use this as an employee engagement opportunity! The analysis of the study revealed that employees participating in a fantasy football league with their coworkers had higher survey scores when it came to measuring teamwork and trust with their coworkers. Workplaces that encourage employees playing and socializing together had higher results in overall workplace teamwork and considered their workplace a great work environment. Employees at these 'best places to work' often feel a sense of “family” in the workplace.
Some key highlights from the study include: Of NFL fans surveyed, 75.3% were highly engaged employees compared to 63.8% of non-NFL fans.
Company Culture Leads to Employee Empowerment
The most effective employees are those that feel empowered to do their job and learn and grow into the best contributor they can, not those that feel caught up in a hierarchy or a corporate system. Although employee engagement and employee empowerment are important in creating a successful workforce,
according to a recent Inc.com article, emphasizing these two key components can actually be counter intuitive. Here are a few tips to creating employee empowerment and engagement without emphasizing it.
