Many employers think that the only part they have to play in their employees’ lives is to pay them their salaries. They could not be more wrong. While paying wages and salaries is important, this is not the only thing that your employee should get from you. You must find ways to support your employees too.

Managing a team is certainly harder and more involved than running payroll. It spans several duties and responsibilities, all aimed at offering them the best you can and getting the best they can offer in return.

Going above and beyond the call of duty to support your employees will certainly make a difference in your workplace. You will attract talent, retain the best people and transform your organization’s results.

However, supporting your employees is not a walk in the park. So is getting great results. Below, we outline six tips to help you support your employees and achieve better results in the process.

Communicate better with your employees

Is your communication with your employees stilted, stunted, and weird? Is it a one-way communication where you deliver all the requests and never have to hear feedback from your employees?

Then you’ve been going about it the wrong way. To get the best of your employees, you need to listen to what they have to say. Listen to their ideas, inquiries, and complaints. Pay attention to what they are not saying too.

Create an environment where they are not just comfortable enough to share their thoughts, but are also sure that you would regard them. Make open communication a norm at your organization.

Intimate every member with the goal and vision of your company. This way, everyone knows what direction you’re headed, and they can align their overall work with that vision.

Practically, this can occur in the form of one-on-one meetings with employees. If you have a large establishment, a newsletter might have to suffice.

Alternatively, if it’s a physical newsletter printed on a billboard, you could create a feedback/suggestion box. If it’s an online newsletter, you might want to consider inviting them to reply to the newsletters.

No matter the medium you choose to communicate with your employees, ensure that it’s open, honest, and easy to navigate.

Be mindful of their mental wellbeing

Happy employees equals a happy workplace, which means better results. As such, it is important to ensure that you’re helping your employees improve work-wise and helping them grow in other areas.

This is because, whether you like it or not, one part is not separate from the other. You need to ensure that there is an avenue for them to speak about issues that may negatively affect their mental or physical health.

Things like anxiety or depression may reduce their ability to achieve better results and their desire to. A good way to ensure that this does not happen is to enrol them in the Employee Assistance Program (EAP).

This is a confidential service run by external parties that help your employees deal with issues affecting them. This works because the assistance programs come at no cost to the employees and are fully funded by the employer.

Also, it might be easier for your employees to speak to an external party, especially if what’s bothering them is a personal problem that they are not comfortable with any other employee or their boss (you) knowing about.

Delegate tasks and responsibilities

You might think it’s easier to get the work done if you just get it done yourself. There are several things wrong with this. Firstly, you will burn out, and you will not get the work done as quickly as others can.

No matter how you look at it, two good heads are better than one. There’s also the small fact that you hired your employees to help, so there’s no reason why you should do all the work yourself.

Delegating important responsibilities to your employees takes work off your neck and signifies that you trust your employees. You might be afraid that they will not be able to do it right, but the only way to get them to learn is to let them do it themselves.

You can ensure that they take on the responsibilities and come back to you as often as they want clarification when they just begin.

If you understand your employees’ strengths, you can delegate tasks they are more prone to excel at. You should also ensure that you give them the appropriate training and information before giving them any responsibility.

When you delegate tasks to your employees, you must take your hands off the task and let them do their jobs. A few nudges here and there might be great, but you should not let them feel like you are breathing over their necks.

You should also not let your employees feel like you do not think they can carry out a responsibility you assigned to them.

Reduce and resolve conflicts

Every workplace has its share of workplace conflicts. This is because your employees are humans with feelings, not robots. Each person is unique, hand s a different background, experience, and body of ideas. As such, differences are bound to arise.

However, you can nip most conflicts in the bud by creating a well-defined organizational structure. Each employee must understand who they report to, who is directly over them, and who is linear to them in the organizational structure.

You should also ensure that everyone has a distinct job description. Clearly defined job descriptions include a job title, expected work outcomes, requirements, and processes. This will ensure that everyone knows the boundaries of their work.

Diversity has become a key issue in workplaces, especially in recent times. You should encourage employees to embrace diversity by setting an example for them.

If your staff knows what your organization’s stance on issues like diversity is, they are more likely to know how to navigate these issues.

Create a conducive work environment

You need your workplace to be conducive before you can do good work. Sometimes, this might mean creating a physical environment that encourages work. Do your employees work in a dreary space that they just want to escape at the end of the day?

Do they have chairs that are uncomfortable for them? Are their spaces too small for them to be able to stretch? You might think these are small issues that should not affect the results your employees give.

However, even the most passionate person can get weighed down by an unconducive physical work environment. Also, it is becoming increasingly important that employers start considering flexible workplaces and work hours for their employees.

Many people were forced to work from home during the pandemic. While the pandemic was certainly a negative experience for us all, it also helped us understand how your employees perform while working from home.

You can consider creating hybrid work hours for your employees. Younger people might prefer to work for later hours and resume late. In contrast, older people might prefer to start work earlier and finish in time to get home to their children.

Some people might prefer to work from home, while others might prefer to work from the office. Others might prefer to come into the office on some days and work from home on others.

If you pay attention to your team, you can find out what works best for them and help them achieve work goals using whatever works best.

Offer them training programs

Offering training programs is a surefire way to ensure that your employees are supported. If you have had an open communication system with them, you would have found their weaknesses and strengths.

This way, you can recommend them for training programs that strengthen their weaknesses and complement their strengths.

However, training does not always need to be formal or external. You can conduct in-house coaching sessions for your employees using in-house resources. You can even have recurrent knowledge-sharing sessions amongst the team.

By doing this, team members can share knowledge amongst themselves. One person knows what the other knows, and you have a more balanced work environment.

Mentorship is also a great way of training your staff. You can create in-house mentorship programs that place younger employees with older ones who have more experience.

This ensures that knowledge, skill, and expertise are passed on. It also ensures that you have a line of succession at your organization and makes you attract the right kind of workers.

People would love to work in a place where they can develop their skills and gain more knowledge; they do not just have to give all the time but can also gain something from.

 final thoughts

Supporting your employees will never be an outdated concept. Smart employers ensure that their employees look for more ways to support their employees at every turn.

This way, your organization will be a star workplace where the right people are attracted to. You will also retain more talent than most other organizations.

Being on your employees’ side also guarantees that each individual and your whole organization achieves better results than ever.