Psychologists have long known that employees with good attitudes toward their employers produce better at work. Job performance is affected by how employees feel about themselves, their employers, their fellow workers and their customers. Your business success depends largely on the attitude of your employees. Employees with poor attitudes affect customers negatively, discourage other working from doing their best and do not perform to their own level of capability.

When examining employee attitudes, start with yourself. Be genuinely interested in the other people you work with—not only employees, but customers and suppliers. Respect your employees’ dignity. Be patient, understanding and helpful. Let employees know that they are important to your and your business. Let them know that performance will be rewarded. Help employees identify what will make them feel fulfilled and happy within the job. While you want to be sensitive to the emotions of employees, that doesn’t mean you should ignore poor performance. When an employee does not perform up to standards or if he or she has made a mistake, meet with the employee in private to discuss the issue.

Include your employees as team members. Ask for their suggestions and respect their ideas, even if you do not always agree with them. When you use a good employee idea, remember to give the employee credit. Rewarding performance encourages other employees to speak up with their ideas. This practice also helps all employees feel more valued for the ideas, as well as the labor that they contribute.

Listen to your employees. For example, if your small business decided to conduct an employee survey, would you be willing to respond by making changes in the business? What if the survey revealed that all the executives’ offices were air-conditioned and the workspaces for office workers were not air conditioned, would you add air conditioning for office workers? It seems a small issue, but these are the kinds of topics that arise within companies and can bring about employee dissent.

If you would like to discuss employee surveys, team building or consensus building, contact the SCORE® Association (Service Corps of Retired Executives.) More than 12,000 volunteer, business counselors donate their time and expertise to assist entrepreneurs. SCORE® is a nonprofit organization that provides business counseling as a free and confidential community service. For a referral to the SCORE® chapter nearest you, call 1 (800) 634-0245.