If you’re reading this article, we would like to congratulate you on your start-up business!
Establishing your own business is absolutely no joke, especially in the e-commerce industry. The initial business requirements alone will leave you busy like it’s your child’s first day in school.
There’s so much to do when establishing a new business. From getting permits, buying necessary equipment, looking for a secure e-commerce platform, hiring new employees, and creating company values, start-ups are indeed a handful.
But beyond basic technical requirements of a start-up business, there’s actually a certain factor that’s equally important, but often ignored by most businessmen or CEO.
This is taking care of your employees.
High tech machines are essential at work, but the employees are the fuel that keeps a company running. Keeping positive morale within the workforce greatly benefits a startup business like yours.
In establishing your start-up and its core values, in particular, you must greatly consider the morale of your employees.
What is Employee Morale?
According to Study.com, employee morale is defined as the “overall viewpoint of individuals in the workplace, including emotions, attitudes, outlook, and satisfaction level.” This can influence a great variety of factors within a business, including the productivity of the people.
But how can employee morale help develop your start-up e-commerce business? Generally speaking, morale has a direct impact on the employee’s overall performance in the company.
“Promoting positive employee morale and getting to know more about your employees on a personal level directly benefits your business,” William Craig said in his Forbes article.
In order to further understand how employee morale can help develop your e-commerce business, let’s get into the details and a few tips to make it happen.
HIGH MORALE LEADS TO PRODUCTIVITY
According to Bizlfuent, happy employees are productive employees. Companies who care for their employee’s well-being have lesser turnover rates, The employees also get more work done in a short period of time versus those with low morale who slow down the entire process and will affect the company’s revenue and overall performance in the long term.
PRO TIP: Positivity must start somewhere. And as leaders of your e-commerce company, it should start with you. Incorporating positivity in the office by offering an enjoyable and non-toxic work environment will increase the productivity of your business. This, in turn, will help your company reach your goal, like a higher revenue to help with e-commerce startup costs.
UNDERSTANDING MORALE MAKES YOU HUMAN
Many employees leave their current job because they get burnt-out by too much work. Sure, there’s a lot to do, especially in a start-up business like yours. That doesn’t give you the excuse, however, to treat your team like robots because they’re not. The people who work with you have a life outside the office – let them live through it. This is why work-life balance is essential in the office.
PRO-TIP: Promoting work-life balance is a difficult task especially when start-up companies have so much on their hands. But it can be done even with the smallest steps. Allowing them to leave work early, and not bothering them after office hours is a good start. You can also let them work from home when they want to call in sick.
Coming up with activities that promote camaraderie and help them take a break from the usual daily workload helps, too. Incentives like sick or vacation leaves, commissions, monetary compensations are also good options for promoting work-life balance.
A WIN-WIN SITUATION
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.” – Henry Ford
Besides completing a daily task, an employee would want to learn from and grow along with the company as it helps improve their self-esteem and overall work ethic. In your case, if an employee of yours would want to learn what are the kinds of e-commerce platforms, you should let them do so.
PRO TIP: Consider coming up with seminars or training programs that will help improve the skills of your employees. If you don’t have the budget to hire an expert to mentor the event, then have someone in your team to do it instead. Your team can also attend various conferences and seminars in your field to expand your community and allow them to communicate with other people in the industry, as well.
HIGH MORALE OFFERS OPEN COMMUNICATION
“Communication – the human connection – is the key to personal and career success” – Paul J. Meyer
When an employee has a positive outlook in the office, he or she is comfortable in the work environment. This gives the person the confidence to voice out complaints, frustrations, opinions, and suggestions which can help improve the company in general. Who knows, maybe one of your employees know what the most secure e-commerce platform is, but they’re just too shy to raise a hand.
PRO TIP: In order to boost employee morale in the office as leaders, you must listen to your team’s voice. Greatly consider their suggestions and opinions during team meetings, instead of dodging them. If your employees know that their voices matter, they’ll be more than happy to help.
And in the event when tension rises within workmates, address it immediately by letting them vent out, and giving them unbiased advice before everything blows out of proportion.
TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK
According to an article by Neil Kokemuller, “high employee morale usually correlates with greater feelings of teamwork and shared vision.”
It’s a lot easier to work as a team when everyone is on the same page. And if everyone in the company has high morale, it’s easier to work together because everyone has reached a certain understanding. This is another effect that good employee morale can have on your start-up business.
PRO TIP: Teamwork is considered as one of the most important core values of any company. No man is an island, of course. The exact reason is why everyone must come to an understanding with one another.
This is where team-buildings and company outings come into play. Employees should have the opportunity to bond and get to know each other better outside of work. Through this, they can have a better understanding or knowledge of someone’s personality and even history, if the opportunity permits.
Such opportunities can help employees fill the gaps and strategize ways to complete tasks that are comfortable for everyone.
Based on the factors mentioned, it’s very obvious that employee morale plays an important role in your start-up business. If the company core values look after the morale and wellbeing of its employees, and the leaders take care of the employees, then your company will be a success.