The work of the business is one of the most volatile places anyone can ever explore. With over 60% of new start-ups failing within the first 3 years and mass lay-offs happening around the world due to the Covid-19 crisis, it is more important now than ever to find as many ways as possible to keep your business facing forward and producing a profit. In this article, we will be briefly exploring why keeping your most valuable resource content at work can make the difference between a failed business and a 7-figure buy-out.
Work within your Means
You may have spent hundreds of hours a month slaving over your brand new idea for a business and put in huge amounts of money while overworking yourself half to death, but that doesn’t mean that your employees should be following suit. You may have been motivated by your extreme passion, but those under you will likely be motivated by the fact they have a job.
Sometimes it can feel like your staff isn’t putting nearly as much into this as you are, making you think you should hire in new people or find a way to get them to work harder, but such thinking just ends you in this endless list of “would you rather” questions. In the end, it is only yourself who should be putting in this kind of work and the rest might require some patience.
Your Staff aren’t Superheroes
It may seem counter-intuitive, but having people spend more time working in a week actually lowers their productive output. The 40-hour workweek is far more lenient than the week’s employees have historically been put through, but there is a very good reason that it has become the standard.
There are many health risks associated with working much longer than 40 hours a week, such as increased stress, increased likelihood of substance abuse, and significant increases in health issues further on in life. Beyond all this, there is this simple fact that people who don’t get enough sleep and time away from work find themselves severely hindering their creative ability, which leads to further stress as they start to underperform at work.
There’s Value in Happiness
Beyond the simple downsides of unhappy staff, let’s move on to the positive aspects of happy staff. Keeping your business’ work environment pleasant and comfortable helps clear your employee’s minds of stress and encourages them to seriously knuckle down and excel.
A few extra plants and maintaining the aesthetics of an office may seem like redundant spending, but it has been shown time and time again that this is the exact sort of thing that directly translates into positive working habits amongst employees as they feel more encouraged to turn up to work and do a great job. After all, everyone is more productive when they are relaxed and enjoying themselves.
Learn from the Greats
There doesn’t have to be a limit to how impressive your working environment is. Many companies have proved this, such as gaming studio Valve, which has an unbelievably relaxed atmosphere, allowing staff to pick and choose exactly what they wish to work on. This has allowed them to dig down and discover the raw creative passion in their already skilled developers and allows them to produce widely appreciated products.
The internet and tech colossus Google have prided themselves for decades on treating their staff almost like hotel guests, giving them all of the freedom they desire with their workweeks and work-loads, basing their success on their output instead of restricting how they produce it.
Food for Thought
In these tumultuous times, it is more important than ever to keep a close eye on your profit margins and spending. Nevertheless, keeping your workforce happy can be one of the most important acts you take as a business owner. It is always worth listening to your employee’s needs and letting them know that, even though they are at work, they shouldn’t feel like they are trapped.
Allowing employees to free their minds and feed their creativity brings an unparalleled advantage above other companies, especially in these times where one person with a great idea can make all the difference in a sea of failed attempts.