A Newly Incorporated Business Primer: How to Manage Your Employees- The Right Way

You now have a newly incorporated business. New employees are hired but you’re used to working alone or with freelancers or contractors. How do you manage your employees so you get the maximum amount of value from them?

Who Cares?

Your newly incorporated business is your life. It’s your money, it’s your reputation, and it’s your sense of self-worth. You truly and personally care about your business and much like a relationship, you’re willing to invest nearly everything to make it succeed. You’re the owner and that’s your job and passion.

In his book, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How To Be the Best and learn From the Worst, author Robert Sutton says that many bosses have a hard time understanding that there are differing degrees of ownership in a company. The lower level employees have no personal stake in your business so expecting that they will answer e-mails at home, or come in on a moment’s notice may be unrealistic. Hire employees who take pride in doing their best work but don’t expect them to care about your business as much as you do.

Fix Your Attitude

Human behavior is infectious. Happy bosses lead to happy workers especially in a small business environment. If you’re critical, negative, always stressed out, and just not very nice, expect your employees to be the same way. As you move forward through the years, always make sure that your attitude is positive, upbeat, and appreciative. Sometimes bad news must be discussed but constant worrying and negative-toned “work harder” e-mails don’t get results.

Lead by Example

Human beings are wired for justice. They want everything to be fair. If you want your employees to park in the furthest away parking spaces, you must do it as well. If it’s important for their lunch hour to be no more than one hour, yours should be the same. If you don’t follow the dress code that you require of them, this is the perfect recipe for unhappy employees. A boss should follow their own standards and rules just as they expect of their employees.

Have Their Backs

Employees who believe that you care about them and will protect them when their backs are turned will work harder and be happier. Remember that the biggest part of being a people person is following Dale Carnegie’s one simple rule: Genuinely care about people. Fake friendly is easy to see through.

Your newly incorporated business is ready to take off. Make sure that you have the right people in place to help you and once you do, keep them by being a great boss. In fact, the greatest boss they’ve ever had.