Employees are considered very valuable assets in any business. They essentially help us run our businesses to a point that even if we’re absent from the office, they’ll usually know what to do and how to operate it without you. Unfortunately, there are times when you have to put your foot down and question their motives.
After all, can you really tell if your employees actually care about your business, or are they secretly going to sabotage you before they leave for greener pastures? How can you trust that your employees won’t act like buffoons on social media and thus, weaken your brand and make customers question if you’re a trustworthy company or not? At the end of the day, we just want to trust our employees and believe they’re doing all they can for our business, but blindly trusting someone is foolish.
Ensure you perform background checks
When you hire a new employee, make sure that you do all of the relevant background checks you need to and have a good chat with all of their references. Make sure there are no obvious discrepancies in statements made by two different references, and during your interview, ask them difficult questions to gauge how their personality is. Once you’ve established some trust, you can then give them more involved tasks that have the ability to make or break your business. However, until then, don’t give them any task that could negatively affect your business so you don’t risk damaging your reputation.
Preventing fraud
Your employees could be stealing from you right this moment, but are aware? It could be something just as simple as taking a pen or pencil home by accident, or maybe it’s something more worrying such as stealing computer hardware and claiming it was broken and had to be thrown out. If you really want to clamp down on business expenses and ensure your employees aren’t taking you for granted, then carry out a corporate fraud investigation to ensure everything within your business is operating smoothly and you can’t be accused of furlough fraud. Hopefully, you’ll find that nothing is wrong and your business will continue as usual with a renewed sense of trust in your employees. However, you might find some things you weren’t expecting to, and it’s up to you how to take action afterwards.
Interact with employees
Something every employee would want in their lives is a boss that cares about their situation. Perhaps they’re feeling stressed out due to problems at home, or maybe a medical condition is forcing them to work at a slow pace. You need to interact with your employees, speak to them on a regular basis, and ensure they’re happy at work if you want them to be productive. The more you learn about your employees, the more your relationship develops. You’ll have a much easier time understanding your employees if you simply speak to them on a regular basis. Whether it’s at the water cooler, during a meeting or even after work, make sure you take any opportunity you get to learn more about them.