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.
Staff that doesn’t care about your business is normal. You have the 20% that do and the 80% that see it as a paycheck even if it causes the business to go under.
The key is making sure the 20% stay and keep cycling through the 80% until you find staff that semi-care.
I can tell you benefits, pay, etc mean very little in the grand scheme of employee apathy.
Sad but true.