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Team morale impacts more than just how it feels to be part of your company. It impacts the customer experience, the output of your employees, and how well the team can adapt to change. Small businesses run lean, there are fewer fancy perks, and it can be hard to offer the most competitive salaries. Your employees are one of your greatest assets, and you need to build a culture that inspires them to keep coming to work because they’re fulfilled, respected, and enjoy working together.
While there is no silver bullet for creating a team that works together well, creating a strong foundation of organization and communication goes a long way in improving the experiences of all employees. As a student of organizational behavior and the leader of a small business, I’ve seen the impact of organization and communication on my team directly. I know that every team member counts, and driving loyalty and employee retention starts with your culture. In this blog, I will share techniques, tools, and skills all small and medium-sized business leaders need to know to improve team morale – and ultimately reach your business goals.
Leadership is more than a title
The leadership team at an SMB plays a critical role in setting the tone for the organization’s culture. The energy, enthusiasm, working ethic, and communication style of leaders is mimicked by your team. Showing up every day and demonstrating your business’s core is just the beginning of creating a team with great morale.
In a small organization, there are typically few leadership titles, and this lack of upward mobility can create a challenge for retaining your top performers. While there may be only a handful of senior positions on your team, you probably have team members who mentor others, who have deep knowledge of your customers and products, and who are vested in the success of your company. Pulling these team members into your leadership circle and finding ways to develop and challenge them will not only create opportunities for your employees but also will give you new perspectives on your team’s culture.
Clear documentation is an integral pillar for better morale
Team members can become confused and frustrated when they can't find the right information to do their jobs. To cut out ambiguity, reduce errors, and avoid wasted resources, your SMB needs to standardize documentation of processes and procedures.
Start with the highest risk areas and gradually expand to document all practices in your business. Creating a clear standard for your team and excellent training materials for new hires will not only make it easier for your employees to execute, but it will also help scale your business faster.
Don’t let this task overwhelm you! Even though I lead a software company devoted to documentation, I don’t have everything documented. But we have clear documentation on business-critical items such as our software and quality systems, environment setup, backup and disaster recovery, and customer support. Once you’ve created these documents, update them continuously. When you find documentation gaps, fix them as soon as possible. Just like you would fix a product quality issue as soon as you discover it.
Three communication skills to build trust in your SMB
Effective communication is priceless for creating a positive work environment. When employees can easily find the information, they need to do their jobs well, it makes their workday more productive and more gratifying.
As a SMB leader you need three essential communication skills:
- Listening – Your employees, customers, and peers are telling you how to improve every day, but you have to hear them to improve – their words, their tone, their body language.
- Providing the why – When you let employees in on the why behind a decision it builds trust in the business and your leadership.
- Cross–platform messaging – You must use a variety of mediums, and sometimes a combination of them to reach your teams. Meetings, emails, instant messaging, standard operating procedures, training documents: Every communication channel has its role. Sometimes you will need to repeat yourself to be heard, and that’s OK.
One way I improved communication for my team this year was to create a “My User Manual” for every team member. Everyone shared how they like to communicate, their preferred communication methods, their icks, how to gain their trust, and shared these with the whole team. This opened the doors for better communication for everyone on the team – including me.
Combining the power of organization and communication with a document control solution
Both clear communication and well-organized documentation lead to better transparency, and to implement these effectively you need a central place to house policies, procedures, and other key pieces of content.
A document control system (DCS) is the foundation of organizational efficiency. With a DCS you can:
- Automate version control: This ensures your employees are always using the latest, greatest documentation.
- Unify training: New and existing employees can read and acknowledge training material in one central location.
- Route documents for approval: Everything from marketing content to contracts can be shared for formal approval signatures, changes can be cataloged, and old versions automatically archived.
My top software tools to facilitate better communication
MS Teams - This is a core tool for my team to communicate, share content, post updates, manage activities in kanbans, use whiteboards and converse. We discuss everything from customer issues to strategic goals, fitness, and shoutouts. We also communicate with memes through teams, which imbues our conversations with much-needed laughter.
ENSUR – We built ENSUR to help teams document, stay organized, and train employees. I believe in the power of cutting down on the number of applications and places people need to look to find the right document. And so, my team stores everything in ENSUR or Teams.
Work smarter to take your team to the next level
Lousy systems can cause frustrating administrative work, stress, and wasted effort. Don’t give up! It is obviously easier to build a high morale culture than to dig out of a culture that’s built up a plaque of bad morale, but it isn’t impossible.
Upset employees can be infectious, and a sour culture can stem from one or two unhappy people. Listen to your team. Either through direct communication or through trusted delegates. Once you’ve found the issue, it’s time to right the course and make a change. You may need a new system, clearer communication, or a reorganization.
A healthy organization is a smart one. When your employees spend less time digging for the truth, they spend more time focusing on what adds value to your business. Not only does this make your team more productive, but it also makes their workday more gratifying. Be as transparent as possible with your team through clear documentation, communication, and organization.
Your company culture will always be a work in progress. Remember to be transparent, empower your team, foster open communication, and to never fear a course correction.
