John WinterFinding your USP can be difficult, especially when you’re operating in an industry with so many competitors. However, there are many different ways to define yourself and carve out a name for your brand, and it could be that you’re thinking too narrowly about what this might entail.
For example, instead of directly appealing to your customers, you might make employees the target of your USP. Highlighting a positive and healthy working life is a topical point of discourse in modern times, and making it known that this is a priority of yours is something that people are bound to take notice of, but how can you go about it?
Comfort is Paramount
Of course, physical comfort can’t be ignored here. Whether your place of business is an office or something more manual, like a warehouse, there are steps that you can take to make this an environment that people don’t dislike spending time in. This is important, as an uncomfortable or otherwise unpleasant space can be something that encourages people to look for work elsewhere. In office spaces, this might mean that you look into desks and chairs that can emphasize comfort – long-term damage can be done to the backs and eyes of employees through excessive computer use, and highlighting this can help you to suggest steps to avoid the damage that these can do.
Temperature control is also important regardless of where you are, but you might find that physical working environments can put people at risk due to the heat they acquire through working. Therefore, when it comes to areas such as warehouses, investigating options like HVLS fans might be the direction that you want to go in. Obviously, whenever you’re thinking about all of these additions that you want to make to your workplace, as good as your intentions might be, your business is still subject to a budget. Therefore, making yourself aware of how you can save money on energy costs with HVLS fans in your warehouse might help you to see the broader application that changes such as this can have.
Emotional Comfort
Comfort isn’t just about the physical space, though; it’s also about how happy your employees feel while working there. Creating an environment where your staff members feel safe and content enough to come to work and spend time there without distress is your responsibility, and that’s a basic bottom line. Without this, you might find it difficult to employ people at all, especially once people start to leave and your turnover is affected.
How do you create this emotional comfort? Part of it might have to do with ensuring your employees that they’re heard. If they have a problem with the environment or some aspect of your management, encouraging them to speak about it and deliver feedback in a constructive way can help you to improve. It’s important to try and be objective here, even if you feel as though you’re being criticized. That’s not to say that all of this feedback will be actionable, but doing your best to make sure that it’s at least heard can help your employees feel valued. Similarly, if you’re noticing that certain staff members aren’t as productive as you’d like them to be, looking into why through a lens of compassion and understanding might help you to get to the heart of the matter more effectively than reprimanding them. The latter option might only widen the gulf between you and damage their mental health while working with you.
So, if that is the baseline for what your work environment should look like, how can you take it above and beyond? Well, offering your employees the chance to work flexibly can give them a degree of control over their work/life balance. Sometimes, this might be a cost-saving measure on your end, turning down the prospect of an office in favor of remote working due to the money that you’ll save. However, if you do have an office and still offer the chance for people to work remotely, you end up with a situation where all of your staff members can customize their own professional lives. Those who work better at home can do that, and those who occasionally like a dedicated professional space can enjoy a more spacious and trusting office environment.
Personal Success
While you obviously want your employees to lead your brand to a level of success that will make you the envy of the industry as well, what people who are looking for careers might be more interested in could be how well your employees do themselves. If you offer varying and substantial opportunities for training, this can be yet another step in helping your staff members feel happier while working with you – confident in the knowledge that they aren’t just spinning wheels, but they’re furthering their own professional development. Of course, the plus for you is that you end up with a more skilled and qualified workforce.
What about after that, though? Once they have all of the qualifications they want, do they just look for work elsewhere to put them to use? Well, it doesn’t have to be that way. If you’ve already taken the steps to design a work environment that they enjoy, they might not want to leave; it could just be that way because they’ve gone as far as they can go or they need more money. Offering higher opportunities within your own business and providing a chance for their careers to progress can be instrumental in helping your staff feel as though they have a future with you.
The Salary
It’s difficult to talk about incentivizing employees to keep working with you without touching on the salary, as it’s an incredibly important aspect. As much as other benefits can be alluring and even effective in drawing prospective staff members towards you, many might not be interested in even sending in that initial job application if the salary isn’t worth their time, so you have to be competitive in what you offer.
Zachary Douglas
