7 HR Tips for Service Businesses: Helping Your Team Succeed

This article on HR tips for service businesses is written by Vonigo COO Rick Brooks-Hill. 

Hiring great team members is only half the challenge of operating service businesses. Once they’re trained, and even after they’ve been with the company for a long time, there are lots of things you can do to help to motivate the team and improve performance.

A lot of fuss is made about how millennials need to feel like their work is valued, and with good reason — they do. But that’s not a generational thing. Everyone can benefit from feeling like the work they do is important. I’ve written a list below of ways that you can help your team members understand how important they are to your company.

1. Show Them Their Impact

With each team member, you should tie a direct line for them between the work they do on a regular basis, and the success of the company as a whole.

Start by showing them how their work affects the company’s bottom line. Where possible, tie this to the company’s ability to earn a profit. But don’t stop there. Highlight the various ways that team members can have a direct impact on the company’s success.

2. Celebrate Wins

When a team member makes an impact, celebrate it. First, celebrate it with the individual team member, then with their team, and with the company as a whole.

Some “wins” might not seem like company-wide news to the team member, but every little bit helps. Showing them how much their contributions matter to the team will be great for morale, and also work well as a teaching opportunity for their fellow team members.

3. Encourage Your Teams to Share their Wins

Create a forum where team members can share their own wins as well as those of their fellow team members. And use those forums yourself to announce successes.

You can use company meetings or huddles, intranet posts, email blasts, or any other way to let the company know what’s working. Make sure that whatever you choose it becomes something you do consistently. Your company culture will shift toward an environment where all team members feel welcome to share successes.

4. Don’t Be Afraid of Failures

It’s not just successes that should be acknowledged. Recognize failures too. If appropriate, celebrate the efforts of your team regardless of the outcome.

Recognizing failures will not only present plenty of learning and teaching opportunities but also help to build a culture of conscious risk-taking. Your team and its valued members shouldn’t be afraid to fail, especially not at the expense of taking risks that could turn into rewards.

5. Pave a Pathway to Growth

For each team member, plot a course for their growth within the company. Yes, money matters. But just as important is a path for growth in responsibility or challenge.

Feelings of success and growth are important to everyone. If people get stuck in a role that doesn’t change or challenge them, they will begin to look elsewhere. The more ambition a team member has, the more likely they will crave new challenges. So unless you give your team members new challenges to work towards, you risk losing your best people.

These growth targets are not just good for retention, either. Putting your best people on a course toward growth in your company will make a difference throughout your organization.

6. Encourage Self-Directed Success

Allow people to succeed or fail on their own. Once you have discussed their plans for growth within the company, allow them to own it. Offer your help, but don’t run the risk of micromanaging. Offer help in a systematic way by touching base on a regular basis and not only on a “fire-fighting” basis.

7. Ask How You Can Help

While you want to make sure that people are in charge of their own fate and growth, make sure you create an environment where they feel comfortable asking for help.

Once you understand what their goals and challenges are, as a leader in the company both your and your team should invest in achieving that growth. Make yourself available to help on a 1-on-1 basis, and schedule regular check-ins so your team knows you have concern their future.

If you follow all of these steps, your team will feel challenged and motivated to grow and have an impact. The most successful service businesses are the ones who place as much importance on team member satisfaction as customer satisfaction.

Software for Service Businesses

Want to learn more about the growth of service businesses using software for booking, scheduling, billing, and payments? Book a free, private demo of Vonigo.

As the COO of Vonigo, Rick Brooks-Hill deals with hundreds of service businesses on a regular basis.

He oversees the growth of Vonigo and its team and is invested in the growth of Vonigo customer companies as well.