Building a healthy relationship with your employees is vital in the modern work world. Here are some of the main reasons why:
- Increased employee loyalty and motivation
- Reduced workplace conflicts
- Better industry reputation
- Less employee turnover
- Thriving workplace culture
- More employee engagement and interaction
Not to mention, it also helps business managers to develop their own skills and outlook. In a nutshell, it’s a win-win for both parties!
Also Read: 5 Shopify SEO Mistakes and How to Do it Right
Of course, at times, it can be challenging to build a healthy relationship with your teams and individual employees. However, this guide is here to help you and put you on the right track.
Sound interesting? Great. Let’s dive into the details below.
1: Know about employee rights
When you know about the rights that your employees have, this lays the foundation for then building a healthy relationship with them.
Also Read: How Do You Save Money Using a Bank Account?
Sadly, many business managers simply don’t know the rights of their employees, which can lead to all sorts of unnecessary problems and conflicts.
For example, it’s very important that you learn about employee annual leave in Australia. This way, they’ll be no disputes during the year about how much time your employees can have off work.
Here are some other rights that employees are (by law) entitled to:
- Receiving the National minimum wage
- Protection from unlawful wage deductions (for example, if an employer decides to cut an individual’s wages for no reason)
- Paid holidays
- Protection from discrimination
- Protection from being treated badly due to only working part-time
As you can see, employees have a lot of rights – as that’s barely scratching the surface.
Also Read: Best WordPress Translation Plugins
Managers have a duty to abide by these rights and do everything in their power not to break them. This way, employees remain happy, and disputes are kept to a minimum.
2: Focus on Diversity
Over recent years, there’s been a huge shift in the workplace as companies have started to implement more diversity.
Also Read: Top Memes of All Time
A diverse workforce that consists of different genders, ages, ethnicities, values, beliefs, and backgrounds is great for building a positive and exciting workplace culture. Not to mention, you also gain access to a wider range of talent, which is great for sales, marketing, product development, customer service, and everything else in-between. It’s a no-brainer.
3: Create a hybrid work model
Since the COVID-19 pandemic struck back in 2022, working environments have evolved beyond belief.
Now, it’s very common for people to work from home on a full-time or part-time (hybrid) basis. Even big companies like Apple and Microsoft are allowing their engineers and marketing employees to work remotely from home, which is a big deal.
Also Read: What is Social Media Defamation? 4 Tips to AVOID it!
The reason why remote work has become so popular is largely that it removes commuting and also means you get to work from the comfort of your own home.
On top of this, it also allows healthier and more beneficial relationships to be formed between employers and employees. The stress of an office environment often makes this a difficult thing to achieve, while it’s the complete opposite with hybrid work.
4: Hold frequent one-to-one meetings
Typically, most employees enjoy having one-to-one meetings with their managers. This is because it allows employees to receive feedback (which they can then make improvements from) as well as give their own feedback to management.
Also Read: 5 Digital Marketing Trends
Ideally, you should be looking to hold one-to-one meetings every three months. However, if you have a smaller workforce, you might want to do this monthly instead.
Or, if you have a large number of employees, you might need other members of your management team to step in and hold one-to-ones on your behalf.
5: Avoid micromanagement
Every employee on the planet fears the prospect of micromanagement – which is why you need to try and avoid doing it at all costs!
Sure, as a business owner or manager, it can be very tempting to want to control every aspect below you. However, this can lead to all sorts of problems, from unhappy employees to a lack of creativity in the workforce. Naturally, you won’t want this to happen.
Also Read: 7 Best SEO Tricks That Boost Your Website Traffic
Rather than micromanage everything, you should instead aim to encourage creativity and freedom of expression. Of course, overseeing everything is still important, but it’s all about finding the right balance.
6: Develop your interpersonal skills
When trying to build a healthy relationship with your employees, you’ll struggle to do this if you don’t have interpersonal skills.
Here’s why interpersonal skills are important in the modern age:
- They make you likable
- Employees feel more comfortable and relaxed around you
- It becomes easier to motivate and instruct employees
Usually, good interpersonal skills come from within. However, there are ways in which you can develop them.
Also Read: 6 Best WordPress Plugins For Small Business Websites
For example, people with interpersonal skills are typically very good at listening to others and communicating their ideas in a smooth and convincing fashion.
7: Always offer your help
No matter the day or situation, always try and offer your help if you see that an employee needs it (or if they’ve approached you directly and asked). This will make employees feel happy knowing that they have a manager who genuinely wants the best for them. Not to mention, your help and advice will also encourage employees to grow and learn, which is great for your business because employees who are encouraged in such a manner will be more loyal to the company, which will also make them more productive.
8: Be flexible with workplace rules
Lastly, it’s a good idea to be flexible with workplace rules.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that the office should be a ‘free for all’ with no rules at all.
Also Read: How paraphrasing Help Bloggers to Write SEO-Friendly Articles
However, it does mean that there should be some room for flexibility. For example, if they want to, employees can chat without others from across their desks (providing it isn’t too excessive). Also, if they like, employees can regularly get up to do some stretching and move around, as this is a great way to reduce tension.
The more flexible you are, the happier your employees will be – make no doubt about it!
