I read an article today about this very subject, and thought it was worthy of passing on. Elizabeth Gordon, President of Flourishing Business, LLC and author of the best-selling book The Chic Entrepreneur: Put Your Business in Higher Heels, outlines several ways to bring out the best in your employees including setting aside a half hour of reading time. Here are a few of my favorite excerpts:
If you just need labor, hire a mule. If you have hired a person, then allow that person to do what they do best. If you can create an environment that will allow your employees to tap into their inner genius and use their unique talents, you can leverage these things for your business success. Employers should create a work environment that encourages growth, creativity and efficiency in their employees.
Allow your employees a reading time break (and I don’t mean an email reading break). Setting aside just thirty minutes a day for your employees to read the latest in your industry’s advances or simply read the newspaper can increase the productivity of your workforce.
Tell them why you hired them and show them how they link to the success of the company. Set the expectation with people before hiring them that you expect them to play an important role in helping the company to successfully achieve certain goals through the use of their skill set... A job should bring out the talents in an employee. Otherwise, it’s the wrong job for them.
