Employees: The Best & Inexpensive Ways To Care of Them

Your employees are your gateway to your clients and the face of your business. They interact with your customer base more than you do. You need to take care of the people who take care of your clients. Money is an obvious motivator, but it’s one of many options. Here are some other ways to earn loyalty from your team without an expensive raise.

Treat Them Better Than Your Best Client

As computer business owners, we work hard to attract and keep clients. We might bring them breakfast, take them out to lunch, or invite them to dinner and a ballgame. How often do you shower these perks on your team? Small gifts or food go a long way towards showing employees you appreciate their hard work.

These aren’t working lunches either. These are meals or gifts with no strings attached;  just genuine loyalty.  If an employee is working late at a client, let them order pizza on the company dime. Then bring them coffee the next morning.

One way to save money is to look at your client base. See if you can work out discount programs to give your employees extra benefits. A gift card to a local coffee shop with a post-it note might be perfect.  These gifts are another opportunity  where a client might give you a discount for your technician.  More than once when I’ve told a client we’re buying a gift for an employee, they’ve given it to us for free.

Respecting Their Time Outside of the Office

Everyone likes to have a life outside the office. The last thing anyone likes is working after hours even if they’re hourly.  When an employee does this extra work, it’s time to recognize the contribution.  Payment, even over time, isn’t gratitude any more than a client paying you is the same as thanking you.

This recognition is where a small gift comes in handy again.  It doesn’t have to be big.   That’s especially true when the client benefited from that after hours call.  A nice note is sometimes all it takes. If they have a family, a gift that helps them out goes a long way. After all, you interrupted the entire family’s time.

Get To Know Your Employees

When you’re giving those gifts or striving to be nice, you need to know more about your team. Successful business people have long dossiers about their clients. Can they say the same about their employees?

If you give a nice gift card to a local steakhouse and your employee is a vegetarian, you’ve sent the wrong message.  Know their outside likes or interests and know a bit about the members of their immediate family.  Getting a small gift for a spouse or child of an employee goes a long way towards earning their respect and loyalty.  Although I’m much older, I fondly remember when the boss gave my Dad tickets to a basketball game .  Dad wasn’t a fan, but I sure was!

Always Have Food and Drink Available

Noticing a theme here? Nourish your team and they’ll nourish your business. Successful companies, especially in silicon valley, have stellar break rooms.  They lavish their employees with all sorts of refreshments.  Granted you don’t have the facilities for something like that, but people need to eat and drink. Go to the local warehouse club and keep the break room well stocked with what your team likes.  Ask them and don’t assume what they want. Today with food allergies and dietary restrictions, you need to customize your offerings.

Passing Along Positive Comments and Kudos

I’m amazed at how often business owners hoard positive comments for themselves.  When things go well they take the credit, but when things go wrong, they blame the employee. Employees should hear the praise you get from clients, not just the criticism.  I use a review funnel system and I make sure to pass along every positive comment about the work we did.

When we get a note from a client, I send it to the whole team and write a thank you note to the service technician. They need to know they did an excellent job for the client, and who better to tell them that than the client?

Know When to Say No To Clients When an Employee Asks

When an employee has a problem with a client, you need to think of the value of the employee versus the client.  If that client hurts the ability of your employee to service other clients, it’s time to get rid of the client.

If your employees do great work, you don’t want one client to ruin your ability to serve all your other clients. On the other hand if they leave, you won’t be able to serve your other clients well.  You’ll also be wasting resources looking for a replacement.  Most of the time it’s better to fire the client to save the employee.

Making Sure Paychecks Are Never a Problem

When money is tight, you still have to make sure paying your employees is the top priority.  Business owners feel that, as part of the team, employees will understand if payment is late.

They don’t.

I’ve done a ton of interviewing of technicians.  One of the top reasons I hear that people leave is because of payment problems.  The tech is told that a client was late in paying and thus the employer can’t make payroll. Not only is delaying payment to an employee often against the law, but it sends the wrong message to the employee.  Employees like stability and certainty.  If they wanted to take risks of payment, they could go out on their own or join your competitor.

New Responsibilities and Training Opportunities

If employees excel at what they do, you’re likely to keep them doing what they are doing. That’s a mistake. It causes burnout and boredom. When an employee gets bored at their job, they’re more likely to seek other opportunities.

Before you get to that point, ask them into what areas they’d like to branch out. Maybe it’s learning a new piece of hardware or software or getting certified.  Give them the tools or resources to get to that point. They might want to work on non-technical skills like sales and marketing. I was shocked when a technician was interested in going to a BNI meeting.  She wanted to get over her shyness. I was all for that.

Computer repair business owners too often are afraid of upgrading the skills on their employees. The owners feel the employee will leave them or demand more pay. If you’ve created loyalty and an affirming environment that’s much less likely to happen.  If you don’t give them those opportunities, the employee will go somewhere that does.

It’s Your Job to Take Care of Your Team

When employees leave, it costs your company money. You’re less able to take care of your clients because you don’t have the staff.  You’re also directing resources away from your core business to do HR issues. If your employee goes to a competitor, you could lose clients to them. If that employee starts their own business, now you also created another way to lose clients.

Focusing on things besides money won’t cost you that much more in your business. Taking care of them creates loyalty and long-term success for you and your clients.

Written by Dave Greenbaum