4 Key Skills That Every Employer Should Encourage in the Office

When it comes to your workforce, there are obviously some skills that only apply to specific roles. Then there are some that are valuable in all roles but apply especially to some (for instance it is good if everybody has good people skills, but vital that your HR and sales teams do!). Finally, there are behaviours and skills that are important for everyone and should be encouraged in order for your company and workplace to perform at its best.

Here we are going to take a look at four of the latter types of skills and behaviours, and how to foster them in the people who work for you:

Teamwork
It may seem like being good at working as part of a team isn’t important for everybody – after all, only some people perform their day to day tasks within a team dynamic. However, everybody is part of the broader team that is your business, even if they are a contractor or temp. Having people who care about working towards shared goals and supporting each other can be key even when those people work independently of each other most of the time. An important thing to do here is actually give people a chance to properly get to know other people within your company, for example with things like team building activities from Team Tactics. Doing things together outside of the workplace encourages people to get to know people in other teams and departments and helps everybody feel part of a wider team they have a role to play within.

Leadership
You may think that leadership skills are only important for people in leadership roles, however they are skills that can be developed throughout the organisation which will not only allow you to raise up new management talent from the lower levels of your company, but also allow people at all levels to work more effectively. People with good leadership skills are better at motivating themselves and working on their own initiative. They can also lead where necessary, for instance a sales person may not have any staff of their own but will need to provide leadership when they need other staff to do pre-sales work for them and will even need to provide a sense of leadership to the accounts they oversee.

Admin and Organisation
Everybody in your company has to do some form of admin, even if it is just filling out timesheets or submitting expenses. These may seem like trivial things, but when people see them as a very low priority and are always late with them, or don’t really understand how or why they work, it can throw your business into chaos! Organisational skills should also be encouraged in the general office space. A more productive environment comes from having a clean space to work in, and so employees should get into the habit of cleaning and tidying their office regularly. Sometimes companies employ industrial office cleaners such as Ideal Cleaning who offer regular janitorial services to do deeper cleans and to motivate employees to keep the space clean in between. If this is the kind of service you need for your office, you can find out more information at idealcleaning.co.uk.

Accountability
Everyone in a productive workplace takes responsibility for what they need to do and is accountable for their own work. People who don’t see the importance of their own job within the wider structure have a tendency to feel less accountable and are therefore more inclined to push problems off to other people or teams, or to blame other factors if something they should have done was done badly or not at all. Making sure that everyone sees where they fit in the company and why their part of the puzzle is important. Supporting staff who are struggling with training or assistance is also a good way to help them feel that they can be more accountable and not seek other people or processes to blame for any mistakes or shortcomings.

These are just four of the things that ideally, everyone you employ should have, and be encouraged to keep developing.