Regardless of whether you have one or 20 employees, your productivity and profits will both go up if all your employees work together as a team. If you feel that’s not the case in your shop, or if you would like to ensure that you are covering all the bases, I hope that this checklist can help.
• Hire the right people
At Elite, we look for people that have the right attitude, the right aptitude and the right ethics. I am sure you will agree that in order to cultivate a team spirit, everyone on your team will need to have these three traits. Not only should you have discussions with your key employees about your hiring intentions, but you need to have them involved in the interviewing and decision-making process as well. They will be working with the new hire every day, so if nothing else, you owe them the opportunity to give their input.
• Educate every new hire on the things that are most important
During their orientation, you need to educate them on the goals of your company, your Mission Statement, and the culture of your company. Ideally you’ll not only have a Mission Statement, but you will have the new hire memorize it as well.
• View your entire organization as a family rather than a company
Simply put, you should recognize the birthdays of all of your employees, their family happenings, etc. The more you can instill a feeling of family in your employees, the stronger your shop’s team spirit will be.
• Have regularly scheduled team meetings
In addition to reviewing your policies, procedures, etc., at your meetings, you need to review your mission and culture as well. This constant reminder will help foster the common cause teamwork you are looking for.
• Provide ongoing education
In addition to job-related education, you need to provide your employees with ongoing education that fosters your culture and team spirit. At Elite, every new-hire is required to read How to Win Friends and Influence People, and as a team we read (and review) books like John Maxwell’s Ethics 101 and Attitude 101.
• Perform regularly scheduled employee reviews
These reviews not only provide you with the opportunity to praise each employee for their team efforts, but you can ask them for their suggestions on how to further improve the team spirit within your company. If you’ve hired the right people, you can rest assured they will provide you with the answers you are looking for.
• Create team incentives
Although every employee needs to be compensated for their own productivity, you need to have team incentives in place. In addition to incentives for overall shop productivity, you should consider incentives for 5-star reviews that reflect their team efforts.
• Do away with hierarchies
I feel that in today’s world we no longer need hierarchies, which is why no one works “for” me at Elite; everyone works “with” me as a team. This does not mean everyone isn’t accountable, because they are. It just means that I view everyone in our family at Elite as being incredibly important to our mission. I have found over the years that when people know that you care about them, and when they realize just how much you value their role and contributions, they will then move mountains for you.
Article courtesy Elite.
