As we’ve written before in our blog post on 6 Components of a Great Corporate Culture, defining your company’s values provides an open pathway to success and reminds employees of your goals. One of our core values at IQ Total Source is to act as professional movers and shakers. This means we strive to raise the bar in our service and professional goals by accounting for our actions and proactively responding to our customers’ needs. Read on to learn how to inspire your own employees to become movers and shakers.
Make Trying New Ideas Easy – Work to remove the red tape your employees might be deterred by. When they’re well aware of the low stakes and ease of presenting new ideas, they’ll be more open to coming up with them in the first place and developing something your team can put to use.- Give New Ideas Their Own Space – Designate a wall of the office as new idea territory, set aside time and resources to develop ideas in a think tank, or make a point to research and follow up on all ideas proposed by employees. Suddenly, innovation and creativity has become an exciting component of employees’ jobs instead of a detour from ‘normal’ work.
- Put Customers First – Not only do we mean concentrating on customer satisfaction, which is of course smart, but encouraging your employees to put themselves in your customer’s’ shoes. When they are familiar with looking at business practices and interactions through the customer’s eyes, your employees will be more likely to come up with innovative solutions.
- Don’t Hide Failure – Some of the most successful companies are those who are comfortable talking about failure within the office. Try not to stray away from discussions of failure because these will inevitably lead to discussions of ways to improve and new chances to take. Making failure less taboo will prevent your employees from becoming paralyzed in their everyday routine.
- Don’t Define Your Employees by Job Title – Sure, your employees will have the title of the job they’ve been hired to do, but encourage them to step outside those boundaries, especially when they’re working with teams. Employees who don’t feel confined by their title are more likely to lend a hand where they can and work toward the goals of the collective instead of simply their individual responsibilities. Reward this behavior! Two minds are usually better than one.
- Try Teamwork – While some companies are naturally set up to take advantage of team situations, search for different ways you can put to use a team environment in your own office. Set up communal spaces and reassure employees that asking for help is a good thing.
- Take a Look at Your Company’s Structure – Ensure that all employees are given easy access to superiors and other employees to discuss their ideas with, as well as rewarded for their initiatives. How can you expect employees to perform above the bar when there are no motivating ways to do so? Be sure everyone is being recognized for their contributions.
Interested in developing a new communal space or reorganizing your office to incite collaboration? Check out IQ Total Source’s furniture section. Maybe you’d like to hang up a cork board for your new ideas wall? We have those too, along with many other solutions for an office of movers and shakers.
