One of the most common frustrations among business owners is feeling like your team simply doesn’t “get it.”
They show up, do the job, but don’t take ownership of their work. There’s a lack of accountability and little initiative beyond what’s asked.
These small things add up over time and lead to disengagement, staff turnover, absenteeism and missed growth opportunities.
But what if the problem is the culture rather than the people?
This is the question Business Blueprint members explored during a recent Workshop Wednesday with Operations Expert Joshua Taylor. In an exclusive session titled “5 Ways to Incentivise Staff to Stay & Start Acting Like Business Owners,” Joshua laid out a fresh perspective, explaining that, “Staff turnover is a signal that your culture needs attention.”
Here’s an outline of how business owners can build high-performing, invested teams without relying solely on pay raises and bonuses.
1. Give Visibility to Create Buy-In
Transparency is essential in business. When team members understand the bigger picture, including financials, challenges and targets, they’re more likely to care and be personally invested in their work.
Start by identifying your business’s key indicators. These could include revenue, number of sales, customer retention rates, or project delivery times. Choose which numbers to share with your team and make them visible with regular updates, dashboards, and open planning sessions.
Visibility creates buy-in. Buy-in leads to ownership.
2. Empower Decision-Making
Ownership begins with responsibility. Instead of just delegating tasks, Josh encouraged business owners to delegate projects, allowing team members to take something from start to finish themselves.
He also introduced the ODI model:
- Owner – who is ultimately accountable?
- Doer – who carries out the work?
- Informed – who needs updates as work progresses?
This framework gives clarity and accountability while encouraging autonomy. Combine this with clear decision-making boundaries (e.g. financial thresholds or project scopes), and you’ll begin shifting your team from followers to leaders.
3. Build Growth Pathways
People are more likely to stay in their job when they see a future.
Too often, team members leave because they feel stuck. By mapping out potential career progression, you give them something to grow toward. This could include skill development, leadership roles or more involvement in strategy.
Offer learning opportunities like internal training, peer-to-peer mentoring, or short online courses. Encourage “stretch moments,” where a team member might go out of their typical routine and comfort zone to lead a meeting, present an idea or manage a campaign.
Recognition of potential, followed by real development opportunities, keeps people engaged and loyal.
4. Create a Culture of Recognition
Recognition is the cheapest and most effective incentive, but it’s often missing from the day-to-day.
Celebrating effort (not just results), encouraging peer-to-peer shoutouts and acknowledging personal wins are small things that build an unshakeable culture.
Joshua’s team uses “Feel Good Fridays” to celebrate individual contributions on a weekly basis. They also highlight the how behind successes, not just the outcomes.
“What is celebrated is repeated,” he explains. “If your team is solving problems without you, shout it from the rooftops and they’ll do it again.”
5. Connect Their Purpose to Your Mission
Staff tend to leave because they feel disconnected.
As a business owner, you need to have real conversations about personal values, passions and purpose. When your team understands your ‘why’ and feels like their own purpose aligns with it, they’ll show up differently.
This could be as simple as acknowledging a team member’s passion for volunteering, or finding ways to support causes they care about. Sharing stories, both yours and your customers’, helps humanise your business and remind everyone of the deeper impact being made.
Beyond Business Culture: The Role of Incentives
When used well, incentives can be very powerful, and they don’t always need to be financial:
- Non-Financial: RDOs, flexible hours, birthday leave, social activities, personal development budgets, upgraded equipment or time off for volunteering.
- Financial: Performance bonuses, profit shares, milestone-based pay rises, commissions or referral bonuses.
The important distinction is that rewards are earned through behaviour and results, not dangled as bait and made impossible to achieve.
A final reminder:
When you treat people like a team, they act like a team. When you treat them like owners, they think, act, and perform like owners.
By embedding visibility, responsibility, growth, recognition and purpose into your business, you’ll build a culture that will help you retain great people and empower them to help grow your business, even when you’re not in the room.
About Business Blueprint
The World’s #1 Business Program
Business Blueprint brings members the latest techniques and strategies to take control of their marketing, build better foundations and achieve the growth they are dreaming of.
If you’re tired of the business owner hamster wheel and sick of spending every day putting out spot fires, sign up for personal support, group accountability and access to the strategies that will maximise your profits and free you from the daily grind.
Membership includes:
- In-person conferences
- Weekly workshops (including AI news and training)
- Access to a library of over 1000 training videos (check out some samples here)
- Accountability groups
- One-on-one coaching calls
Want to know more? Book a call with a member of our team today.
