As a boss, it can be very difficult not to be overly controlling toward your employees. After all, you are probably stretched thin with all that you are managing.
Fortunately, there are a few things to keep in mind if you are afraid you might be a horrible boss.
YOU OVERWORK YOUR EMPLOYEES
Bad bosses overwork their employees. They require them to put in extremely long hours and sometimes even stay late at the office, even if they don’t provide their employees with additional compensation as a result.
More often than not, if you are not giving your workers sufficient time off, vacation time, parental leave, etcetera, you are probably not being the best leader.
At the end of the day, it’s important to provide your employees with some level of work-life balance. To be fair, this can be difficult if you are in the phase of your business, during which you are genuinely requiring a lot from your employees to increase your revenue and build your reputation through long hours.
If you find that you are overworking your employees, you might want to try:
- Providing workers with longer vacations and additional sick days
- Raising wages—if that is feasible—if people are working exceptionally long hours
- Hiring more employees—if possible—so that your workers are not exhausting themselves
YOU DON’T REWARD GOOD WORK
The best bosses will reward good work: If your employees are consistently staying late at the office to ensure that you are succeeding as a business and they feel as though they are being taken for granted, that is a bad sign.
While it’s understandable that you cannot always buy pizza and give out gift cards if doing so is not in your company’s budget, a few words of praise and recognition at the end of a tiring week will likely go a long way.
Additionally, it is probably a good idea to consider raises and promotions for exceptionally talented employees who consistently go above and beyond in the office if doing so is realistic.
Regardless of the situation, it is almost always a good idea to let your workers know how much you appreciate them in one way or another.
You might consider:
- Celebrating an employee of the month
- Giving people gift cards or free pizza whenever you reach a milestone as a company
- Gifting your employees with thank you cards at the end of the year as a gesture of gratitude for all they have done for your organization
- Simply taking the time to thank each worker for everything they do at the end of every week verbally, particularly if it’s been an especially difficult one
YOU DON’T DEAL WITH CONFLICT
Unfortunately, conflict often arises in the office: For one reason or another, employees could have trouble getting along. Sometimes, this is simply because there is, naturally, a lot of competition, and two people are vying for a particular position.
On the other hand, some could experience intense discrimination on the basis of their race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender. The latter issue is a more problematic, deep-seated one because your employees should always feel comfortable in the office, especially if you are looking for a long-term commitment from them.
There are many ways to solve this issue, or, at the very least, alleviate it:
- Have extremely clear policies and procedures banning sexism, racism, etcetera, in place.
- Implement these policies if someone is consistently disobeying them.
- Be understanding if someone reports sexism, racism, homophobia, etcetera, and hold those who are responsible accountable for their behavior.
- Hold regular meetings about how to be tolerant and accepting of people who have different customs and beliefs than you do so that your employees understand how to communicate respectfully.
Working is never easy, and being a good boss is no small feat, but it is important to make sure that you are treating your employees as well as you possibly can. After all, they will likely impact your bottom line in a major way.