If your business is growing, then there’s a good chance that you’ve needed to take on a team of workers – and that’s incredible news! This is an exciting time for your business because a strong team can make a real difference to the success of your business. But, if this is all new to you, it can be extremely daunting to take on the responsibility of looking after a workforce.

While you’re just as much a human with needs as they are, it’s important to remember that when you run a business, your mind is in a million and one places. In turn, it can be easy to forget about your employees and the responsibilities you have for them. So, let’s take a look at how you can look after them so you’ve got a happy and healthy team.

Meet their basic needs

Before you begin thinking about how you can put your new team into action, you need to make sure you’re meeting their basic needs first. This will involve thinking about their work conditions. Is there a facility to make refreshments? Are there working bathrooms? Is the workspace clean? If the answer is no to any of these questions, you need to make sure you tick them off before bringing anyone on board.

After that, you then need to make sure that everyone is safe while they’re in the workplace. This will involve you making sure you take out risk assessments for each individual and making sure that they have everything they need from tools to uniform and equipment. If you work in a high risk environment, you’ll also need to think about industrial safety equipment too, so that they can perform their roles in the safest way possible.

Build a positive working environment

Once you’ve ticked off the basic needs of your employees, you can then concentrate on making sure that you build a positive working environment. After all, without one, you’ll soon notice that your employee turnover rates rise, which is the last thing you need for your business. Not only does it look bad to potential employees, but you’ll be wasting time, effort and money training people up just for them to leave.

It’s a good idea to get your team involved so that everyone’s happy. Not only will you get a plethora of ideas when it comes to what a positive working environment is, but you get to help build team relationships too.

To get you started, consider adding these to your work environment:

• More natural light
• Clean decor 
• Personal work stations
• Background music (if possible)
• Fresh flowers
• The best equipment you can afford

All of these things contribute to keeping people in a good mood the second they walk through the office doors. Dark rooms with tattered decor are going to do the opposite effect, and make people count down the hours until they can leave. Instead, focus on improving lighting, decor, and indoor air quality. Partnering with a professional HVAC service Hilton Head, or one elsewhere, can help maintain a comfortable and inviting atmosphere that supports productivity and positivity. And, when your team is using good equipment and can sing and chat while they’re working, they’re naturally going to be happier and more productive.

Provide training and coaching

Every workplace has someone that is simply there to make ends meet, but most people actually want to do a good job while they’re at work so they can excel. Aside from the hopes of a promotion for more money, they want to go home feeling satisfied with what they accomplished during the day. For that to happen, you’ll need to make sure you provide them constant training and coaching wherever possible.

You can start by setting new employees up on a training programme alongside a more seasoned member of the team. This will help make sure they can perform their roles as you need them to, and also help them get to know the rest of the team while building skills you need them to have in the future.

Once they’ve completed that training, you need them to coach them further. This will give you the chance to see how much they have learned, and gives you a chance to give and receive any feedback. You may find areas where you can improve their skills to make them more efficient at their job, and maybe even enjoy it more!

For those employees that have been on board for some time, you need to think about providing training for them that could help them excel in your industry. For example, if you hired a marketing executive to help with optimising content on your website and some backend administration, you could consider sending them on an SEO or marketing course so that you can offload some of the work you’re doing onto them. It’s a win-win situation; they learn skills that can help you, and you provide them with training that could earn them more money either with your company, or somewhere else in the future.

Foster open communication

One of the first things you learn when you run a business is that communication is key. But, what they don’t teach you is that you need to make sure your team is as good at communication as you are. Try to update your team regularly on how well the business is doing and give them targets that you’re hoping to achieve (within a time frame). Getting everyone involved will help keep them engaged with the work they’re doing and encourage them to be as passionate about your business as you are.
A great way to do this is by hosting weekly or bi-weekly meetings to talk about where everyone is with their current projects. Not only does it allow you to make sure everyone is on track, but it also allows you to realign objectives as a team so that you’re all working towards a common goal. Research OKRs and KPIs to see how they could help you align your team and help each member of staff feel appreciated

Reward and recognise their efforts

If you truly want a happy team, then you need to make sure you find opportunities to reward and recognise the efforts of all team members on a regular basis. When your team is doing well and hitting targets, then you need to tell them, reward them, and thank them. For example, if you spot someone putting recent training into practice, praise them and give them some positive feedback that they can use to continue to upskill themselves. It might take some time, but eventually you’ll find it second nature finding the amazing things your team does.  Tools like the best employee recognition software can also help ensure these moments of appreciation never get overlooked.

Beyond bonuses or time off, commemorating milestones with Awards – awards like engraved plaques or trophies – gives employees a tangible reminder of their impact and reinforces the behaviors you want repeated. Celebrate quarterly wins and display recipients’ plaques in shared spaces to strengthen recognition culture.

You should also reward your team when you reach certain goals or get some incredible customer feedback. You can reward them with buying everyone lunch or giving them an extra day off. You could also look at putting a more formal reward scheme in place that will provide your team with bonuses that won’t put your business out of pocket, but will show how much you appreciate them.

Prioritise mental health

Finally, mental health is thankfully less of a schtum subject in this day and age. And, while personal problems shouldn’t be brought into the workplace wherever possible, sometimes things happen that are out of your employee’s control. If and when this happens, show compassion. You can do this by lightning their workload for a few weeks or offering some time off to work through their issues.

While this might be hindering your business slightly, they will appreciate it. Not only will they return bright eyed and bushy tailed, but they’ll have a renewed sense of loyalty which will push them to continue being a valued employee.