Every employer's dream is to have employees who care as deeply for the success of the business as they would if the business were their own. While you may never get employees to care that much, you can build a sense that what's good for the business is good for them. Here are some steps to building that type of commitment and involvement:

Many people believe that work performance is a reflection of how employees feel about themselves and their work. If an employee is proud of the job that he or she does, the work quality will reflect that. Employees who have bad self-images are more likely to exhibit those negative feelings in their work.

If you have a larger number of employees, or if you have a few employees who tend not to express themselves in meetings, a written survey or opinion poll on employees' job satisfaction may be a better option. It can be in paper or electronic format and it doesn't have to be long and involved, but it gives your employees a chance to think about what they want and to express themselves more effectively. Doing a written survey has several advantages:

If you suspect that morale is suffering and you have only a few employees, a written survey may make employees feel more comfortable, but it certainly won't make their comments anonymous.

The simplest, most obvious way to get information about how your employees are feeling is to just ask them. Are they getting what they want out of the employment relationship or is there some gripe about working conditions that you can correct? The most obvious time to do this is if you conduct annual or semi-annual performance reviews, in the context of discussing the employee's pay raise. As a part of that process, you can bring up the issue of what the employee likes and dislikes about the job, and the general working environment.

Low morale may exist among your employees, but you may not realize it. There are some obvious signs that you can watch for, though, including:

There are several factors that contribute to high morale in a work environment. Employees must feel that they are:

It's tough to walk the fine line between trying to develop a relationship of mutual trust and respect and getting personally involved with your employees. While there's no law that says you can't get personally involved in your employees' lives — apart from harassment laws — it's not a good idea.

There's no foolproof method for gaining someone's loyalty, but many of the same things that hold true in a personal relationship apply in an employment relationship, as well. The keys to a positive relationship are trust and respect. When employees feel respected, they will generally respect you and the business in return.

Monetary and hidden costs associated with employee turnover are also of concern.

Some would say that the days of loyal employees and employers are gone. There used to be an almost family-like relationship in employment, where employees and employers looked out for one another. Now, employees are forced to look out for themselves as employers no longer promise a lifetime career.

If a business wants to ensure that employees remain with the business, it has to:

While measuring turnover for large companies with many employees is usually more technical and the results more scientific, small businesses can also keep track of turnover and try to spot trends and potential problems.

Another tell-tale sign of low morale and dissatisfied employees is high turnover. Turnover is the rate at which employees leave your business. Because employees who are satisfied with their jobs generally don't give them up, high turnover is usually indicative of a problem.

The causes of turnover are related to the same factors that contribute to absenteeism and low morale — if workers are not interested in their jobs, they will either stay away or leave.

Once you've figured out how to measure your business's productivity, you need to determine whether your productivity is where it should be. This task can be tricky, especially if you're getting this information for the first time. Factors to take into consideration are:

You should choose a convenient measure of productivity, based upon the type of operation your business is involved in and what you're producing. You'll also need to choose a time frame in which to measure it.

What is productivity? A simple way to think of your business's productivity is in terms of:

It's easy to see how an employee who sells a lot of your product helps your business's financial bottom line, whereas an employee who misses important deadlines hurts your company's profitability.

Ask any successful business owner what the key to success is, and you might get a variety of answers. One answer that you're likely to hear a lot is that dependable, productive employees are one of the keys to their success. Many business owners rightly recognize that it is the people who work for them that make the difference, regardless of the product or service they sell.

In most states, an employer may generally discharge an employee for practically any reason, or for no reason at all. This employment relationship is known as employment at will. Besides allowing you to terminate employees "at will," the employment-at-will doctrine allows you to change benefits or employment practices whenever you deem appropriate.

One way to keep your handbook from becoming an implied employment contract is to include a conspicuous piece of language that clearly says that your handbook is not an employment contract. That piece of language is commonly referred to as a disclaimer. Just having a disclaimer, however, will not ensure that your handbook won't be considered a contract — it must be very carefully worded.

Ideally, your handbook should be more than a compilation of rules and regulations that your employees must live by in the workplace. That's not to say that your policies aren't appropriate to put in a handbook — they most definitely are. But there are other things that you may want to put in your handbook as well.

An employee handbook is a manual that contains an employer's work rules and policies. It can also contain other information that is useful to the employee, such as the business's history, its goals, and its commitment to customer service.

Apart from deciding what goes in the handbook, there are a few mechanical issues that you'll need to address.