If you are like most other small business owners, your primary measures of success weekly, monthly and annually are in the numbers like these:
- lessons given
- horses boarded
- horses sold
- commissions earned
- horses trained
- summer campers enrolled
- and most important, profits earned.
Business owners are drawn to numbers because profit is the primary reward for business ownership. But wait, we both know it’s not about the money, only.
Doing work you enjoy around people you like to work with is of great importance, too. However, the nature of business focuses the owner’s thoughts on money much of the time.
Does this mean your employees’ primary focus is money, too? I’ll be the first to testify I’ve heard many employees complain about low wages and too much work.
But, is money the great motivator?
Studies over the last sixty years (see source note below) have asked employers what they think employees want. Here are their answers ranked by importance:
1. Good wages
2. Job security
3. Promotion/growth opportunities
4. Good working conditions
5. Interesting work
This is what employees answered about what is important to them:
1. Full appreciation for work done
2. Feeling “in” on things
3. Sympathetic help on personal problems
4. Job security
5. Good wages
If you are self employed now, take some time to remember what it was like working hard in the past for your boss and getting no recognition or respect for your efforts above and beyond expectations. There is no getting around the fact that employees, family and friends, too, have a need to feel appreciated.
It’s important to all to feel appreciated and respected; Rodney Dangerfield kept people laughing for decades as they identified internally with his classic line, “I don’t get no respect.”
To keep your employees happy, motivated and productive, make an effort to offer praise and appreciation whenever you see a job well done. Even the small stuff is worthy of praise since much of work in general is the sum of many small tasks. A few examples:
“Terrific work on getting the morning chores done on time, short handed.”
“Thanks for fixing that broken fence rail right away on your own.”
“You sure put that angry boarder at ease by explaining why her horse wasn’t turned out today due to a loose shoe.”
Showing employee appreciation by your spoken comments or in writing is low monetary cost and high yield in business benefit. And all business owners appreciate low cost with high yields.
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Note:
The information above is a partial list of ten factors surveyed from both employers and employees. This survey first came out in 1946 in Foreman Facts, from the Labor Relations Institute of NY and was produced again by Lawrence Lindahl in Personnel magazine, in 1949. This study has since been replicated with similar results by Ken Kovach (1980) Valerie Wilson, Achievers International (1988) Bob Nelson, Blanchard Training & Development (1991) and Sheryl & Don Grimme, GHR Training Solutions (1997-2001).