No business can move forward without people. From CEOs of multinational organisations to managers of SMEs, everyone in business knows that keeping their teams moving forward together in harmony means the difference between success and failure, or at least the difference between high profitability and underperformance.
There’s an art to motivating employees – and there’s a huge benefit, too.
| "Studies by Warwick University show that happy individuals are 12% more productive." |
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With that in mind, here’s some tips for workshop managers who want to keep their people smiling – and performing at their best.
Employees need to feel that they are part of a business, not just a group of people who come to work there. Make sure the team feel pride and responsibility in what they do, and they’ll care more about the service that your customer is buying.
One way to achieve this is to have each member of a team become familiar with each area of workshop activity, allowing them to bring their ideas for garage-wide improvement to the table and have input in the whole process. It all contributes towards team members feeling more connected and truly a part of the workshop. Because when we’re connected to something, and feel it’s ‘ours’, we don’t want it to fail.
As a workshop owner, you typically have a clearer perspective on the bigger business picture than your employees do, so share your insights because it pays to tell those under you what’s going on. Things that you may take as common knowledge about the automotive aftermarket, the challenges that are coming down the road or new products on the horizon may be news to your team. Sharing the information increases knowledge, makes the members of your team feel valued, and strengthens the feeling among workers that they are an important part of the organization because they have been included in your discussions.
Hopefully, bad news for your workshop will be rare, but in any business there will be bad news from time to time. Whether this news affects the company as a whole or an individual within the organization, employees need to be informed in a straightforward and respectable manner. If you choose to keep your people in the dark, perhaps for fear that they can’t handle the bad news, rumours may spread, and rumours are typically worse than the reality.
If you’ve offered the key motivators above, making team member feel a valuable part of a workshop that will recognize their contribution, maybe look at more creative ideas that can enhance team spirit. As we said earlier, you’ve got to get employees to feel that they’re part of a place, not just a group of people that come to work there. Matthias Jendrossek, owner, Jendrossek Autoteile GmbH, Germany, has installed a boxing ring and a games area for the team to use.
How do you attract newly qualified mechanics to come and work for you?
We’ll give the last word to Matthias, who gives us his thoughts on keeping the team happy to achieve business success. “Away from my workshop,” says Matthias, “off-roading gives my life balance. And boxing helps balance my team. The boxing ring was my brother’s idea but I was right behind it and it’s been a great success. It’s really engaged the team. Over the years we’ve been running Jendrossek Autoteile GmbH I’ve learnt that my team is the heart of my business. Building a boxing ring and a games area in a workshop might be unusual,” says Matthias, “but if our employees are happy so are our customers.”
