Make Each Employee Feel Ownership

People take better care of what they own. Whether it is cars, homes, or games, time shows that ownership leads to more care than renting or borrowing does. The same is true in business. Your employees will take better care of your business if they feel a sense of ownership.

This can be promoted in a number of ways. Some companies actually allow employees to purchase equity in the company. I like it when I see business owners give opportunities for equity participation in companies. I think that employees feel a special pride in literal ownership of the companies for which they work. This is not feasible in all companies, however, especially smaller ones that might have numerous investors who would have difficulty with diluting their investments or with other related situations. Many similar instances make employee ownership difficult.

There is nothing, however, preventing employee ownership in business processes. You’ll find that employees will take a special pride of ownership of business practices if they are given an opportunity to participate in the process. It is surprising to me how rarely companies take advantage of the knowledge of their frontline employees to help in improving the process of serving their customers.