Your company holds a lot of assets.
You’ve got computers, furniture, office supplies, product,
perhaps a fleet of vehicles, maybe an entire building. But
your most important assets, says Bergdahl, are the people
you’ve hired. So when did you last pay them any serious
attention?
If your answer is anything other than “today,” you’re
missing out. Investing in your staff and putting your
employees first in the workplace offers many benefits for
you and your profitability. But that’s only half the
equation…
Other benefits become apparent when employees’ work-styles
are considered; younger workers generally like to be managed
differently than do their older peers. Part of that managing
comes from knowing that leaders who display caring, empathy,
and honesty get more respect. Employees work harder for
those who know that kids get sick, vehicles break down, and
life happens sometimes, but that doesn’t mean that a
supervisor should be a pushover: an employee worth keeping
will know that expectations are never erased and that the
company’s goals still stand, no matter what.
To get to that point, though, takes a paradigm shift.
Supervisors still supervise, but “Employee First” workplaces
rely on “employee-centered leadership, which uses a shared,
more collaborative approach to making team decisions,” says
Bergdahl. It requires “100 percent employee engagement,”
public kudos for a job well done, trust and mutual respect,
and it results in happier employees who display pride in
their work, loyalty to their companies, and stellar customer
service. To start, says Bergdahl, teach your managers to
empower employees and to listen to them – but that’s not
all. This method for a better workplace must come from the
top, down.
At under 160 pages, you might think that Putting Your
Employees First would be a quick, easy read. And you’d
be absolutely correct, especially considering that there’s a
lot of repetition inside these pages.
That doesn’t make this book bad, however; author
Michael Bergdahl has good, albeit commonsensical, advice
here and it’s useable for managers who want to embrace a
different style of workplace, and for entrepreneurs looking
to hire staff that work better in a uniquely-structured
atmosphere. Here, there are plenty of bold-type statements,
helpful worksheets to accomplish goals, and re-reiterated
bullet-points - and yet, employees who require more
hand-holding to do their jobs confidently and well are
largely left out of the conversation in a sea of redundancy.
That’s unfortunate.
Even so, and repetition notwithstanding, this book could
at least make workplaces less stuffy, more worker-friendly,
and quite possibly more efficient for better profitability.
Putting Your Employees First could also mean better
retention – and wouldn’t that be grand?
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