I am a dentist. I felt strongly that half my staff was against me (4 of 7 employees). So I fired them. I inherited them when I bought my business a few years ago. I am very ethical but I do care about gross revenue (as any owner should). They never fully embraced caring about revenue production or understanding that bonus pay is tied to profitability. Nonetheless, I feel it is a failing on my part as a leader that they as a group were not on my team. What can I do as a small business owner to display better leadership and engender better office morale. I should mention that I pay above market wages, have better benefits than market competitors, work with my employees to satisfy the number of hours they need and I run a schedule that is very predictable 8-5 with a lunch and we do not deviate. Further, we take great care of our patients and the staff never has to worry about patient satisfaction or quality of care. Thank you for your input.
Learn about open books management. Teach your employees about money, taxes, capital expenditures. Then give them a reason to want everything to improve. Do an employee bonus pool of 10%-25% net profits. Bonus employee shares of the pool for extended service, 2 years, 5 years, ect…
There are plenty of ways to do it, that will also mean that they look out for your interests and their own. But education is the biggest. Most people are never taught to think big picture and understand how things work from top to bottom. So, make it a requirement of employment. And have an open door policy for talking about things like this with them.