Gift Basket Business Blog

You Can’t “Make” Your Employees Work Harder

September 15th, 2009 at 07:44pm Lorie Obernauer

Although you may be the owner of your gift basket business, and you sign the paychecks each week, you just can’t “make” your employees do a good job. Ultimately, we have no control of how others behave. Sure, we can ask employees to perform certain tasks, but their investment in doing those tasks to the best of their ability rests entirely with them.

So what can we do to “encourage” employees to do the best that they can? First, we can treat them as adults: with respect and honesty. We can recognize that they come to our businesses with a certain set of skills and experiences and we can honor them by asking for their opinions and considering their suggestions.

We can also remember that they may come to work with problems from home. While they need to put these issues aside while at work, we need to remember that their “bad moods” or “anxieties” are theirs to control. Depending on our own comfort levels, we can listen, but not offer advice. Sometimes by sharing our own similar experiences and how we dealt with them is enough to let the other person know that we understand….and sometimes that just enough.

Entry Filed under: Business Tips, Employee Training