As a leader of a nonprofit, you know firsthand that finding the right employees as well as keeping them can be a challenging task. Yes, the industry can both lack qualified candidates and carry high turnover rates – sometimes feeling like a lose-lose.
So, when you’ve finally found the right employee, what do you do?
It is in your best interest to do whatever you can to make them feel fulfilled by building a work atmosphere that is full of trust, empowerment, and support.
With that, the team at Charity Search Group has put our heads together to come up with 7 tips to keeping morale and workplace satisfaction high, and turnover low.
1: Empathy – in the fast-paced, overworked nonprofit world, empathy can go a long way. We’re talking about understanding if an employee is sick, if their child has a big performance coming up, or even little things like if they need an extra half hour coffee break to reset. Showing your employees that being human is okay will ultimately lead to everyone coming in ready to work every day.
2: Honesty – this tip is all about setting up truthful communication patterns. From you being honest with your employees to your employees being honest with you, create an open forum where everyone can speak freely. Use it to talk about workplace expectations, habits, what is working, what is not. After all, honesty is always the best policy.
3: Goals – together, as a team, set goals that are direct, trackable, and achievable. This helps keep everyone on the same page, which will make it easier for everyone to see their part. In the end, setting team goals will require less direction from you and give your employee more self-motivation. If you can, make them SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound). We could talk all day about SMART goals, so we’ll leave that for another day!
4: Share – seeing as you have a team full of diverse backgrounds and talents, why not use everyone’s strengths to share the leadership roles? Offer your staff members the opportunity to create a committee and give fresh approaches to tasks or even organization issues. This will bring your team even closer together.
5: Worthwhile – take time to recognize the importance of every employee’s job, not just for the organization but on a team and personal level, too. It might seem minute or silly to some, but this actually goes a long way when it comes to employees feeling fulfilled and ultimately doing their best.
6: Educate – from talking about the organization to encouraging employees to continuing training, education will not just help your staff feel in control, it will help the organization run smoother. The more everyone knows, the better.
7: Reward – finally, get everyone involved in the praise of good work as well as be your staff member’s number one cheerleader. Never miss an opportunity to recognize progress with happiness and excitement that motivates and gives confidence. From pizza lunches for everyone to gift certificates for a team, to meaningful recognition emails for employee of the month, get creative. It doesn’t have to be expensive, or cost anything at all. Play it right, and a reward could be your initiative with the highest ROI.
And there we have it. 7 insider tips for employee success. Use them as you see fit and always remember, you are only as strong as the team supporting you. If you want help adding new qualified members to your organization, feel free to reach out to Charity Search Group at any time.
