6 Ways To Support Your New Business’s Employees

When you start a new business, you will gradually start to employ people to work for you. For many business owners, this is their first time being in such a position (supervising, handling payroll, setting culture etc.). You may wonder how you can support your people fully even when you have very limited resources.

1. Provide them with purpose. Most employees want to have a sense of purpose in their work to bring meaning to their day-to-day lives. We all spend a large portion of our days working. So, it makes sense to want to have a purpose behind all that effort.

As a leader, you can help foster that sense of purpose. When you started your business, you likely had a mission in mind. This may be supporting the community, providing quality products or any other vision for the company. People can get behind those goals if you talk about them.

2. Encourage autonomy. Small businesses have one major advantage over large organizations: individuals can each make big contributions. You can offer your employees some control that will let them make the decisions that make the most sense for their work.

Creating a relatively flat (versus hierarchical) organization often makes a lot of sense when you are just starting. You don’t have large departments handling each different function of your business. Therefore, it is easier to have your whole team collaborating towards the strategic goals of the company.

3. Protect their income. For the most part, people are working in order to earn a paycheck. They may like their current jobs more than others, but most people wouldn’t be working if they could afford not to. So, never lose sight of how important it is to protect the financial interests of your team members.

One of the most important steps to start a business is ensuring that you have sufficient capital to cover your operating expenses. This is a continuous process, especially if you have minimal revenue at first. You can support your people by prioritizing their pay.

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4. Practice humility. Humility is a very valuable characteristic for business leaders. It will help you to be a servant leader. This means that your goal as a leader is to empower your people to succeed by removing obstacles from their paths. This is a shared characteristic of high-achieving teams.

Additionally, humility will cause you to treat people as equals rather than underlings. This can be essential for establishing a culture that supports the success of your business. Being humble can take you a surprisingly long way.

5. Listen to them. Your team members likely have good ideas. They are also tapped into the goings-on of your business. So, they can often provide insight that you may not have. Getting into the habit of listening to your people is another way to both support them and enhance your business.

You may find that your team members tend to defer to you due to you being the owner of the business. Try to establish the expectation that you will listen to people and take their ideas seriously. Over time, this will cause them to become more invested in contributing their thoughts and ideas.

6. Offer feedback. Professionals can always benefit from constructive feedback. Furthermore, most people want to learn and improve their abilities. Helping your people to do so with valuable feedback can be a great way to support them.

Of course, feedback is sometimes received poorly when it is seen as criticism. Fortunately, when you combine feedback with humility and an earnest desire to help, it is usually taken very positively. It helps to realize that you don’t know everything and can be wrong.

Develop Your Leadership Today

Discover more about how you can effectively leader your new business. When you create a new company, you have a lot of responsibility on your shoulders. By using the tips above and more, you can create a successful team.

Kevin Devoto

Kevin Devoto
Kevin Devoto is a freelance writer who specializes on topics related to business, digital marketing, and web development.

Kevin Devoto

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