One of the biggest thrills and challenges of running and growing a business is bringing on employees. Whenever I find myself too bogged down with a particular, repetitive task, I first try to automate it and then give it to someone else to handle so I can focus on bigger issues.

One of my employees in particular is a life saver for me. She handles (almost) all the admin work that I hate to do, writes articles for my site, and edits articles that are submitted. Without her my business would grind to a halt as I would get buried under a mountain of work.

Whenever I bring someone new on I try to find out about their passions and see if there is a way to incorporate those passions into my business. Obviously they have to have the skillsets necessary for the tasks I have or I would not hire them but what people are good at and what they are passionate about are different things entirely.

For my employee, her passion is Africa. She has been there twice and helped the local entrepreneurs build their communities. Since my site is all about entrepreneurship I have put her in charge of a new project that we are calling Africa Accounts which will focus on bring awareness to sustainable development through entrepreneurship in Africa.

While she is still responsible for everything else she is working on, she has taken to this new project with so much energy that it not only makes her other work more productive, she raises the spirits of everyone else in the office so they are working harder. In addition to her regular pay she is getting a revenue share from the money that her project produces. I do not know how much it will make yet in comparison to the rest of my site but it gives her the incentive to work harder as she has a stake in it.

If you are bringing new people on to work for you, find what excites them, incorporate it into your business, give them a piece of the action and watch your business flourish. It is a recipe for success that is working for me and can be replicated over and over again.

I would love to hear your stories of how you have motivated and empowered your employees!

Evan Carmichael

Evan Carmichael
YoungEntrepreneur.com Blog Manager

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