How many times have we heard that people make a business successful? Many times, for sure. In fact, it is the employees who determine a large part of the destiny of our company, since they are the figure with whom our customers relate, at other times they are those who make our products, at other times they fall into both cases. For our company, employees are really important and implementing proper personnel management can lead us to increase their happiness and involvement, with beneficial effects on their performance in the company.

Spending some time to implement virtuous employee management can sometimes seem like a low added value activity or even a waste of time. Instead, human resource organization activities often prove to be the fastest way to simplify the entrepreneur's job.

How? Everything revolves around the concept of trust : if we trust our employees, they will trust us. In this way, a virtuous circle will be activated that will soon lead to working peacefully together, keeping important channels of dialogue open to anticipate problems, and maintaining a peaceful atmosphere in the company.

While this type of human resource management may seem like a difficult goal to achieve, we will be surprised to find out how much we can do to improve our relationship with employees starting with eight simple steps.

Don't show yourself superior

Differences in company roles exist, employees, managers and entrepreneurs know them well; therefore it makes no sense to underline them again by putting in place behaviors to emphasize one's authority. Making people who work with us feel inferior will not help them feel valued and valued within the company.

Pay particular attention to what tone and expressions you use to address your collaborators: they could convey an attitude of superiority, without even you noticing it. Learn more about the topic in the Employees in Cloud guide on employee communications.

Pay attention to clothing

As a footnote to the previous point, let us remember that clothing can also be an indicator of one's status.

Surely there may be a uniform or a certain type of clothing suitable for the various types of companies, such as the tasks; in any case, a good rule of thumb can be to dress like your employees, avoiding as much as possible a jacket and tie when they are not needed . Formal wear can build a real barrier between us and our staff.

Do the same tasks

Every now and then we should leave our desk and immerse ourselves in the routine of employees and "get our hands dirty", facing the same tasks.

We will be amazed by how precious this decision could prove, because by coming into contact with work we can discover how our employees' typical day goes.

Reply to emails

Some might argue that you are constantly inundated with emails of all kinds: commercial, internal, business, personal, etc.

In this continuous flow, we are sometimes led to think that communications from employees can wait, or even can be ignored. Responding to every email that comes to us from employees is important to make them feel heard, to stop any gossip and to explain to them what is important?

Take the field

Another way to improve the relationship with your employees is to spend time where the real work is done, whether it is a craft workshop, a construction site or the company warehouse.

Showing our presence in the field is essential, it means being there, being visible and within reach, and it helps to get to know employees and to listen to any doubts they may have.

Be honest

Hiding details, or having secrets, might be part of a business strategy, but it certainly won't improve the relationship with our employees.

Talking with them about our business objectives, and any important decisions to be made, is useful for building a relationship of trust. In this regard, Employees in Cloud explains in detail what to communicate to employees.

There are only three types of secrets that can be admitted:

• personal and confidential information,
• those relating to employee health,
• Commercial agreements still in the confidential phase.

Support employees in any way possible

When one of our collaborators is faced with a personal crisis, we can commit to do what we can to support them and give them assistance when they need it.

Demonstrating ourselves as “human” and attentive to the psycho-physical health of our employees increases the relationship of trust that exists between the two parties.

Relying on employees

Making your employees responsible and letting them know that we consider them reliable collaborators gives incredible results from the point of view of achieving company objectives. If everyone is held accountable for achieving the goals, they will work more carefully to bring them to fruition.

These are just eight ideas to bring us closer to the employees of our company without putting our authority on them, or burdening them with stress, indeed showing us open to dialogue, listening and constant improvement.

There can be many other small precautions that allow employees to feel valued and involved in the future of the company, and all of them involve building mutual trust and not being perceived as aliens.