How to Keep your Employees Happy: It’s Monday, the start of a brand new week. – If you’re the boss you’re probably busy catching up with hundreds of emails and meeting requests that have crept in over the weekend. Take a brief second and ask yourself this – “Are my employees happy?” It may not seem like your biggest priority today however motivating your team and retaining top employees is essential for a business to grow and succeed! Below we list some of the best ways to keep your employees happy.
Communication
This really is key to keeping staff engaged and motivated. Providing regular and constructive feedback not only allows you as a boss to ensure you are reinforcing company objectives but it gives them a chance to outline areas they are struggling with or think can be improved. Focus on something they have done well at – a little thanks costs nothing to you and is one of the best motivational tools to encourage them to go out and impress you again! Communication isn’t just important as a one-on-one tool between boss and employee but for the whole business! If you are a larger company it may be useful to look at a team communication platform such as Slack. Opening up lines of communication between different departments helps keep staff well informed of company news and strengthens relationships of staff within the business.
Build a team that can co-exist
Something to consider when hiring new employees is how will they fit in with the rest of the team. You want to ensure a good mix of personalities and ensure an individual won’t cause conflict with any of your current employees that you have in your team. It can seem a bit cheesy but team building days can help to build trust and strengthen staff relations so try and build this into your company schedule. You don’t necessarily have to send your staff on a weekend mountain hike to do this, there are plenty of team building exercises you can easily work into your daily routine. Social events and work nights out are always a good way of doing this as well!
Salary and Satisfaction
When people look for a new job, the chances are the salary will be a deciding factor in whether they take it or not. Once they are in a role, job satisfaction will become just as if not more important than the salary itself. Most of us will spend the majority of our time in work so if the job role itself isn’t enjoyable it is likely to impact on other team members as well as productivity. This is where communication is vital – make sure you listen to your employees so you can identify areas of concern. If they are struggling with workload, help plan a schedule for them to manage this or if they feel out of their depth offer additional training so they can feel more informed and able to excel in their role. This isn’t to say salary and perks aren’t important! Conduct staff appraisals and ensure you are offering pay rises to those who deserve it. Ultimately the productivity you will lose when your best employees leave can far outweigh salary increases!
Progression
As well as increases in salary most people will be striving for career progression and promotion. Make your employees aware of any potential progression routes when they join your company. This will not only motivate them to prove themselves to you to get a promotion, but it helps you retain staff that may have otherwise looked elsewhere for a new role. If there isn’t a promotion opportunity, look at ways of varying their work role to keep them engaged and broaden their experience within the company. If you can, give your employees a sense of ownership such as a project they can manage or an area to take charge of. A sense of ownership inspires employees to take greater pride in what they do and make more of an effort to succeed.
Ultimately every business is different so it is important to find out what works best for yours. If you can work some of the above suggestions into your company strategy then you should be able to create and maintain a happy workforce… And if that doesn’t work, plenty of chocolate biscuits in the kitchen should help!
Sophie Heaton (Digital Campaign Manager).
