Keeping your employees happy is an essential part of having a productive workforce. Miserable staff will produce poor work; they won’t want to turn up to the office and may not even stay with the company for long. If you don’t think your employees are doing their best, or you have a high staff turnover, something is amiss. Good news: there are lots of techniques you can use to help make them happier. Seeing your employees as whole people and not as worker drones is a good place to start. As soon as you can do that, you can make moves to help improve their happiness both at work and at home.
Encourage Health and Fitness
Some businesses are keen to emphasize the health and fitness of their employees. There are several benefits to doing this, including saving you time and money. Healthier staff members could mean fewer insurance claims. There could be less time taken off work and a more positive work environment. Encouraging your employees to be healthy involves getting them to make better choices. This could mean offering healthy choices in the cafeteria or vending machines. Or even setting up fitness classes during the day. You could also set up a staff running or cycling club. Or you could get people to sign up to participate in an event, perhaps as a charity fundraiser.
Offer Them Counseling
Although it can be easy to forget it, employees have a life outside of work too. It can be all too easy to bring problems from home into work, which can affect performance. If you want to offer support to your staff, consider using an employee assistance scheme. These programs help people to deal with their issues through assessment, counseling, and referrals. A typical system might come with useful information and training. For example, it could provide literature, posters, videos, and presentations. They help employees deal with tough times, as well as everyday problems that affect their health and well-being.
Provide Flexible Working
Getting a balance between work and home life is difficult for everyone in this day and age. Modern technology often means the lines are blurred. Employees are expected to pick up their emails while out of the office, via their smartphone. But offering people the chance to balance the two aspects of their lives is a step forward. Flexible working allows employees to decide when to get their work done. As long as they meet their deadlines, they can choose when to work. It requires a degree of trust for your staff. So it could be something you trial before implementing permanently.
Give Them a Break
Working your employees to the bone can, unsurprisingly, have an adverse effect on their performance. Allowing them to have more breaks and vacation time could help to boost their happiness. You can encourage them to step away from their desks occasionally by providing break room facilities. Try increasing their vacation time to allow them longer to recharge.
As a general rule, happy employees means more productive employees. But, remember to create the right work environment to help them feel enthusiastic about what they do.
Photo by Paul Proshin
Milo Senalle
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