Care for your staff

There can be absulutely no question that your staff are the most important resource in your business. Like anything else, if you treat it well it will perform an excellent job for you. If you treat it poorly then you will have problems. This means that staff care is crucial.

Of course this is a very mercenary view. But if you are the kind of manager that needs good sound financial reasons for doing things, then this argument makes sense.

For me, I think there is a more fundamental reason why you should do all you can to care for your staff, and that is the word “care”. I really do think that there are organisations , and people, who do not care very much about people. There is something really rather unpleasant about these companies. They leave a bad taste in the mouth. There is an old adage – when changing jobs, you are not leaving your company, you are leaving your boss. Staff care matters and good leadership skills are essential.

How should we improve?

So, how do we care better about our staff? There are some very enlightened companies that really do go that extra mile for their staff. They receive a lot of good P.R. and people are queuing up to join them. It is not just that they provide all kinds of facilities, opportunities, perks, etc. It is that they DEMONSTRATE a caring attitude. They will have the care of their staff at the forefront of their mission statement. They will listen to staff and actively seek out ways in which they can improve the lives of the people who work for them.

If you really do care for your staff then yes you do need to do all the usual stuff such as staff appraisals, family friendly working time, decent salaries, various little perks etc. etc. You also need to ask yourself the question “How can I improve people’s lives?” Only then will you start to be able to genuinely become a caring company.

If you want to be mercenary about it – it really will improve your bottom line – and all the best people will want to work for you.