We’ve discussed community a lot lately. However, in the vast majority of my blogs I’ve talked more about establishing community with your members. But what about your employees?
Think about why your employees stay at your company. Do you have competitive wages, benefits and growth potential? If so, that’s great. But, would your employees say you have established community among your employees?
If you want to have community among your members, you should first have it among your employees.
Establishing community with your employees will make your club a much more exciting place to work. When your staff looks forward to coming to work, they will be in a better mood, become more productive and have a greater impact on your members.
How do you establish a positive community among your staff?
There are a few ways to start, but the first should be to open up communication among your leaders and staff. Discover positives and negatives about the work environment. Once you can see what you have that makes your club a great place to work, you can duplicate some of those experiences in other areas.
Additionally, when you open up communication, you’ll learn things about your business that you may have not known before. It will help you become stronger and able to trim the areas of weakness.
A strong company can inspire employees. They’ll be able to see long-term growth opportunities and enjoy sticking with your company. You’ll have less turnover and be able to spend time hiring talent as opposed to hoping for calls from wanted ads.
Once you establish community in your club it’s vital that you don’t lose it. Hire people that believe in your company and fit your community. If they don’t fit, you risk bringing in someone that can destroy your community and reset you back to square one.
An established community culture in your company is one of the most important aspects you may ever have. If you want to grow, be profitable and have low employee turnover, you must have great community.
Finally, once you establish that community you’ll have people in place that will strive to build community among your members.
Tyler Montgomery is the editor of Club Solutions Magazine. Contact him at tyler@clubsolutionsmagazine.com.
