Running a Small Business: 5 Ways to Help Employees Drive Success

As a boss running a small business, you have gone out of your way to hire the highest caliber employees. You advertised through the best channels and followed up with extensive application and interview processes. The employees are definitely qualified and have shown you a special something that inspired you to hire them in the first place. Now that you’ve made the decision, don’t squander it by stifling their awesome potential beneath an overload of busy work or pointless double-checking.

Be secure in your role as a boss running a small business. You are an entrepreneur, so you’ve already taken one big leap. It’s time to take another by allowing your employees to translate their personal skills, talents and leadership traits into the success of your business. When running a small business, here are five ways to help your employees help you:

1. Be accessible.

It’s important to maintain an “open door” philosophy in a small business. If you close yourself off in an office and never speak to your employees, they will not feel invested in the business. Apathy leads to poor work ethic and bad attitudes, an infectious perspective that other employees are bound to catch as well. Even if you don’t have an office or a door, how you are running a small business still depends on good communication. This includes staff working remotely, part-time hires, and everyone that might be more difficult to speak with face to face on a regular basis. Make the effort to be accessible in as many ways as possible to all employees.

2. Foster inclusiveness.

Provide context for projects, and inform your employees about the ins and outs of running a small business. Keeping employees in the loop doesn’t mean regaling them with stories of how you balance the business checkbook; it means sharing the steps you are taking to see growth and success. Are you excited about a new client or plan? Hold a small, informal meeting to announce things like this. It will allow your employees to share in the excitement with you, not to mention that this can give you some new ideas that might make running a small business easier.

3. Listen and adapt.

You are intelligent and have great ideas, or you wouldn’t be running a small business. But you don’t have to prove it by striving to use only your ideas and make them successful. Listen to the insight and perspectives of everyone you hire. Even the employee that started a week ago might bring up worthwhile criticisms or concerns. In fact, it is often the employees who have been there the longest that become stagnant or complacent. Your employees will appreciate and admire your open-minded and inclusive way of running a small business. Plus, listening is the first step to adapting, handling curveballs and taking advantage of opportunities.

4. Empower the employee.

If you have truly listened to your employees, you have taken the first step to empowering them. How can this help with running a small business? Well, chances are that you want your small business to grow. Growth can only occur with the right amount of manpower and an office structure that allows a balanced spread of tasks, obligations, and goals. To do this, you need to establish positions of power for those who can handle it. Delegate a new level of responsibility to those who show initiative and see what happens. Building success through your employees means teaching them some of the aspects of running a small business.

5. Balance acknowledgement and accountability.

When an employee works hard and gets results time after time, it’s appropriate and important to acknowledge what they are doing for your company. But, on the flipside of the coin, running a small business is equally about holding employees accountable when something goes awry or a mistake is made. To have one without the other is poor and ineffective business practice. An employee that receives acknowledgment without accountability might be overly risky, while an employee that is constantly held accountable but never given credit for positive results will adopt a negative attitude and possibly even quit.

Running a small business is just as much about your employees as it is about your own strength and abilities. Once you’ve hired them, give them room to grow with the company. Help them help you to develop the success of your business by utilizing these five tips. Remain accessible and inclusive, listen, empower, and give credit or reprimand in equal shares when due.

Dreaming about running a small business of your own and implementing these tips? Search Businesses For Sale Now! With thousands of businesses for sale, Sunbelt Business Brokers is going to have something that fits your needs.