Your employees work for you in your organization. You pay employees to do specific jobs. They are each tasked with individual responsibilities that keep your company moving forward with positive momentum. You supply them with solid salaries, reasonable benefits, and comfortable working conditions. This means you’ve done your part, right? What if you could do more? What if your employees could also act as your company or brand’s biggest fans?
What if they carried your message to their networks outside of working hours? Chances are, this social interaction would drive more attention than any company marketing campaign could on its own.
To convert your employees into your most positive fans, use these tips and strategies.
Yes, employees are drawn to job descriptions and salaries. But they’re also drawn to what you claim to represent as a company. Mission statements describe the vision and values that your company lives and follows.
This is important to share with customers, but it’s also important for employees. In fact, when expressed properly, mission statements should provide inspiration and motivation for employees to perform above and beyond your expectations.
To maximize the rewards of a mission statement, you must:
When you integrate your mission statement into your workplace’s culture and stand by it, it shows how important the mission is to the organization. This promotes trust and is a strong foundation for turning employees into fans.
As a business leader, you’re able to see the bigger picture more clearly than employees. Letting employees know what’s going on with regular updates and effective communication makes them feel valued and leads to greater performance and loyalty.
When employees are part of the decision-making process, when they’re aware of decisions and are able to voice their opinions about those decisions, they’re likely to feel like a greater part of the team. Having a voice leads to empowerment, and empowered employees are fans.
Salaries are important. Your employees need to know that they’re earning an amount on which they can live comfortably. This stability is essential to their connection to the company.
But, to build fans, you need to provide more than just great compensation. A few options to consider beyond basic salaries include:
Fair salaries are an excellent starting point, but sometimes it’s the fringe benefits that turn employees into lifelong fans.
If you claim that customer service is one of your top values as a company, you should actively prepare to stand by that claim. If an employee has to jump through hoops and talk to three managers prior to providing a solution to an unsatisfied customer, neither the employee nor the customer is likely to relish the experience.
When guidelines are in place that highlights the remediation process along with potential solutions, your employees are able to make decisions on their own. Of course, you can discuss these decisions afterward and talk about potential ways to improve.
When employees have a sense of autonomy, though, they make better decisions and take more pride in their work–and the company for which they are working.
Put simply, by going the extra mile as an employer and investing in the lives of your employees, both monetarily and beyond, you can turn them into your greatest fans.
Employees who are fans will rave about your business to those around them. They will generate excitement that’s hard to come by elsewhere. Now is the time to focus inward, on growing your best group of fans ever.