How Can We Make Back-Office Roles More Engaging for Our Small Team?

Hi Smita, I am working with a small trading company that deals with tools and equipment. The total headcount in our company is less than 20 employees. Although we are small in terms of turnover and employee strength, we cater to big and organized customers. Therefore, it is crucial for us to engage in activities that focus on serving our customers to the best of our abilities, as customer satisfaction is our mission.

Making Back-Office Roles More Engaging

Currently, the back-office support sales team finds their job monotonous, and we are looking to make their roles more interesting. Can anyone suggest ways to achieve this and keep all the staff engaged?

Thank you.

You can consider flexible timings and work-from-home methods within the working pattern. Try to delegate more authority downwards along with the responsibility for results. Organize picnics and other outings from time to time. Implementing these changes could make the work environment in the company more lively and interesting. Foster a high level of positive and friendly interaction between bosses and staff. Staff should feel a sense of ownership.

Dear Smita, the last sentence of the first paragraph of your post reads, "Now this has become a bit monotonous for the back office support sales and we wanted to make the job more interesting."

Job Rotation as a Solution

Now the question arises as to how many out of 20 are back office support sales staff? As a solution, I can recommend exploring the possibility of job rotation.

Reasons for Monotony

The second reason for monotony could be your low business activity. As the business grows, you will have more issues with the customer.

Addressing Business Trading Activity

Lastly, the innate cause that brings monotony is your business trading activity. If the organization's operations are complex, they bring challenges in their wake. This is not the case for you. Nevertheless, what matters is how you measure the performance of your business. Have you measured inventory carrying cost? Have you measured the cost of obsolete inventory? Have you measured the cost of customer dissatisfaction? Introducing new measures will help keep your employees on their toes and get rid of monotony.

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

Employee Engagement and Motivation in a Growing Business

Thank you so much for your reply. To be honest, we have never measured the inventory cost nor the valuation of obsolete inventory. Actually, we are a very small concern. We started with a shop for engineering equipment and later began trading MNC companies' products. Now, since we are receiving a good response from the market, we want to expand our business to other locations. Therefore, employee motivation and keeping our staff engaged is a significant challenge for us.

Currently, we have three staff in back-office support, three in the store, three in dispatch, two in marketing, and then accounts, admin, and housekeeping. We are also in the process of hiring one or two more staff in sales and marketing.

Please advise me on what should be done to keep our staff engaged and motivated.

Regards,
Smita Rath