Do you feel like a raise in pay for embroidery employees is the answer to keeping them happy and productive? Maintaining a loyal and satisfied workforce by being creative with your benefits can be an affordable option to increasing wages. You need total team work and co-operation from all of your employees at all times whether they are full-time or part-time employees. There are several ways to gain loyalty and get their best possible effort and co-operation without a raise in pay for embroidery employees.

Weekly Employee Meeting

  • Creating flexible working hours for employees that cannot always conform to a strict work schedule of the 7 to 3:30 or 9 to 5 workplace can give you employees that are excellent. For example, moms that have school age children, that need to care for their children around the school schedule. Or a person of retirement age unable to work a full-time schedule or perhaps one that needs time off to care for a loved one. In these cases, the flexibility is very important to the employee and they will typically give their utmost efforts and make good loyal employees.
  • Have a group meeting once a week or twice a month and let everyone know how the company is doing. Employees like to feel that they are truly a part of the team and this is one way to gain their trust. When meetings are continuously private, employees become very suspicious and untrusting.
  • Treat each employee as if they are the most important person in the workplace. By recognizing the importance of the individual and every job position, you create a friendly, family atmosphere. Each and every job position in the business is dependent on the job previous to and after it. Maintaining this atmosphere in a small workplace is very important. One of the ways to accomplish this is by being present on the floor and periodically checking the work throughout the day yourself. You will gain more respect and employees will try harder to please you. It is very important to convey that you are happy with their performance.
  • Express the importance of each and every job position as part of the entire manufacturing process. They all need to be done correctly for the next person to do their part correctly. This is true all the way thru from the Order Taker to the Shipper.
  • Wear a smile at all times showing your positive attitude, even when there is a problem present. This is a huge reflection on the entire business. You need to have the position that you are not attacking them for a problem, but trying to solve the problem.
  • Include them in proposed changes in the organization, systems or processes of production. By having a meeting to inform them of your plans and asking for their input helps to conquer their fear of change. Production workers can be very insecure and will fight every change that is made whether it is a good or bad, unless they know how it is going to affect them. Feeling that they are part of the change will be much easier to get their co-operation.

A raise in pay should be given on merit and job performance alone and not on longevity. Using this method of increasing salaries gives them the motivation to keep striving for better performance and learning new job skills. A raise in pay based on longevity alone does not motivate anyone to strive for higher performance. Yes, they do need cost of living increases but not an increase based on length of employment.

Surprise them with a treat every now and then. This is another huge way of gaining co-operation and showing appreciation. It does not have to be expensive. A few hours off with pay for when they have done something extraordinary, or even a hot fudge sundae from McDonald‚’s goes a long way in making them happy. Make sure that they are rewarded for their extra efforts. This is something that I did about once per month and no one knew when it was happening. When I would come into the shop with hot fudge sundae‚’s or a pizza, their eyes lit up and they were very happy! This has always been a hugely successful tactic for me to gain co-operation and loyalty!

By utilizing the above benefits, you can build a happy workforce and a more positive working atmosphere without always giving a raise in pay for your embroidery employees.