10 Characteristics of a Good Employer

Having your own business is good, your machinery and stocks are well placed. But will you be able to deal with keep up with the most important part of your business – your employees?

Whether they may be fresh graduates or having not completed school, employees must have something within them that could be beneficial to your business. How you as an employer acknowledge, and ultimately hone these for your business, resides on some traits you must have.

Here then are ten characteristics an employer must have. Not being necessarily according to importance, a good employer must:

1.  Not Only Communicative, But Also Listens

Employers have to be clear about all the things the business expects from their employees, how things work, how things will turn out, to the success of the business. Employers should be frequently communicating these business direction and company goals.

But it is not just the downward flow of communication that matters. Employees might also have their ideas of these performance and goals. Keeping them in the loop and providing venue for upward communication will be both healthy and encouraging for them, and forging in them a sense of belongingness inside the business.

2. Have a Unique Company Culture

An employer must espouse a workplace that is conducive enough for his employees to work with gusto. He must also keep balance of having an atmosphere that is both fun yet focused on attaining the businesses’ goals. That means the employees will be free, to an extent, of doing his work as comfortable as possible.

Have enough space where employees can cut loose from time to time. Whether it may be in the form of music, having fun games around, to even allow creativity, employees will work best when their inner talents and creative energy are let loose. As a saying goes, “all work and no play makes one dull.”

3. Cultivate The Whole Person In His Employees

Concurrently, that creativity inside every employee should be taken note, and be built upon in the process.  A worker is not just about narrowing down his task in the workplace, he could also be an artist, or a craftsman, or a handyman.

Great workplaces thrive on talent. Knowing these inner talents of employees should give employers an edge in return by banking on and tapping these various skills and interests his employees may have.

4. Reward Great Customer Service

As any business is service oriented in nature, how an employer sees his people do tasks and approach the businesses public is of great importance. Reprimand employees who are not courteous to customers, and take note and reward those who do. Even the mention of them being the employee of the month and visibly hanging their pictures on the wall will boost their morale and most often than not is a way for them to perform even better at work.

Whether it is just a courtesy greeting at the door, to even personally attending to customers’ needs, these are all add-on value your business can thrive on. Your employees are making these add-on values, so why not give them more than just a pat on the back.

5. Understand That People Have Lives Outside Of Work

A good employer recognizes that his employees are not bound to him. They will be having their lives spent somewhere else, may it be for leisure, or even on emergency. He must recognize the need of an employee who must go on leave and still get full pay, especially on emergency or even life and death situations those employees might get into.

It is not even god that an employer should expect his employees to work just about every day, no matter how committed the employee is. If the employee does not need to work overtime, do not force him to. An employer must keep in mind that overworking his employee will lead to frustration, and eventually poor performance, even losing his service in the end.

6. Have A Mission That Inspires People To Do Their Best

Dedication towards work and the business matters most for an employer. He must espouse values such as hard work perseverance, and how these values will reflect not only to an individual’s success, but to the success of the enterprise as well.

This in turn should be emanated by your employees. Be the model for their hard work and perseverance. If you as an employer are not invested in the company’s success, why should your employees be?

7. Be Flexible

Interestingly, being flexible does not entail an employer will bend to every whim his employees would dish out – he must not tolerate excuses for being late or absent, especially if he sees it as a made-up story.

Being flexible means an employer understands and utilizes certain technologies. If it is possible for a certain task to be done at home, he can let his employee have the option of working from home, but only when necessary.

8. View Employees as Partners

Employees should not just be treated as mere pieces on the playing board. Their roles are therefore constantly aligned to the businesses’ goals in order for them to give the best they can offer to their job description.

Employers should thus instill responsibility to their employees. And the best and successful ones conduct periodic performance management which in turn aligns their employee’s work output towards performance expectations and ultimately towards company goals.

9. Give Good Incentive

At the end of all the work processes and tasks, an employee will most likely be ha happy employee when he is handed with incentives for a job well done. And a happy employee will go back to work every day and perform his tasks dutifully.

Do a research on incentive programs that successful businesses have, and an enterprising employer will understand what a happy employee will do for his business.

10. Pay A Decent Wage

People work for different reasons, but in the end, they work for their economy. They will be expecting a wage that is not just a fare for them to go back to work, but a wage to cover their expenses. Why else would they be working in the first place?

Employers must then know wage standards and the rationale behind them. It need not be above the standards. A good, honest, fair wage will suffice for the needs of employees. It will be detrimental for the business, in the end, for them to be overworked and be underpaid.