Tatiana O’Hara is a corporate operations leader turned Team Operations Coach. She helps entrepreneurs truly become the CEO through effective team building and delegation. Her signature program, Grindaholics Anonymous, has transformed dozens of businesses!

Are you micromanaging? Sometimes we have to take a step back and do what’s uncomfortable. Look at your business as a whole and identify what the problem is and then find the solutions to those problems. In this episode, Tatiana shares how to create a team culture that people want to work in.

Grab your cup of coffee and join us as we talk about:

• Creating a positive team culture
• Communicating with your team
• How to know when it’s time to bring on a new team member
• Why you need to invest in infrastructure, systems, and support before you scale

How do you get people to want to do the work and grow with you? 

When hiring a team, you need to create a place where people want to work. What about your company stands out from others to potential new hires? Creating a place where people want to work starts at the beginning with the onboarding process. Make it fun!

Give your team members a piece of the pie! Bring them into conversations and let them in on decisions. Often, we do our team a disservice because we just tell them what to do, and we’re surprised when they don’t want to take initiative or go above and beyond. Collaborate with your team members and allow them to use their creativity. It makes the work more fun and exciting and allows them to tap into their potential. Take an interest in who they are as people, not just a number. Celebrate your team for the unique individuals they are. Avoid micromanaging, and ask them how they like to be led during the onboarding process. 

Creating a team culture

Culture is something that feels intangible because it’s hard to quantify. Here are some of the critical pieces of culture:

Core Values 

• What are your values and how do you practice them? 
• Don’t think merely of words like honesty and integrity, focus on the meaning of the word and how to implement that in your business with actions. What actions do you take to embody words like honesty and integrity?

Communication

• How does communication flow in your business
• Communication can look different for every team!

Feedback

• How is feedback given and received?
• Feedback goes both ways! Both from CEO to team member and vise versa.

How much should you pay your team members?

This depends on whether your team members are employees or subcontractors. Subcontractors set their own rates, so if you’re looking to hire a subcontractor, it’s best to set a range of about $5 when posting the job description. On the employee front, do some market research and competitor analysis on companies similar to yours with comparable responsibility and look at the average pay. Be competitive, but also stay within your budget!

Remember: the online space is going to confuse you. It’s going to make you think that running a business is all about making money, having lots of clients, and making a lot of social media content. It’s great to have all of those things, but you need to put the same amount of energy, time, and effort that you put into your marketing and sales into your team and operations! People put so much time and money into building their business, marketing their business, getting clients, and selling their products, but then they can’t handle it because they don’t have the systems, support, and infrastructure. Put in that amount of effort up front so that your business is prepared for when you do grow. Everyone says that they want their business to run like a well-oiled machine, but that takes work!