The Essential Guide To Keeping Your Employees Happy

You might take one look at the title of this article and wonder why on Earth you have to keep your staff happy. Surely they are human beings and don’t need mollycoddling by their boss. If you think like this you’d be wrong. In every one of us, there’s that little child yearning for a sticker to show their parents that they have done some good work at school. This emulates itself in a more adult way in the workplace. Employees need to feel valued and appreciated. This boosts morale, keeps productivity high and maintains a sound level of happiness amongst your team. Take a look at how you can help keep your employees happy.

The Environment

Every boss should want their staff team to enjoy getting up in the morning to come to work and start the day. If you are heading to the office to be greeted by a sea of yawning morose faces, then you need to do something about it. Start by taking a look at the office environment that you have created. The carpet tiles and brown walls may have sufficed in the 1970s but fast forward into the twenty-first century and it makes for a depressing place to work. Whip out the white emulsion, put up some cool local photography and add a touch of greenery to the office. This will help lift the mood of those people huddled around a laptop in the new collaborative pods that you’ve bought. Make your office a place that is achingly cool, so that it’s a pleasant environment in which to work.

Communicate

There’s nothing worse than a boss who is nothing more than a mythical figure. These aloof employers rarely get the best out of their employees which can result in a lack of productivity. Instead, get out there and chat with your team. You might find out about Jonny’s son’s nativity or Helen’s latest fashion faux pas, but it shows that you are a normal human being and don’t see yourself as being above your staff.

Set aside sometime each week to send out an email detailing the company’s successes and update your team on how well targets are being met. By sharing news, you are welcoming them into the business vision and encouraging them to buy into it. Shout out those workers who have performed exceptionally that week and allow them to feel a sense of pride and happiness.

Kit

Forget offloading some second rate desktops from the 1990s onto your staff team. Firstly, these will underperform, the work will be of poor quality, and your employees will lack the motivation to do their best. Invest in the better kit, upgrade the printers that are forever running out of ink, and ensure that any servers you have are fit for purpose. By outsourcing to a managed IT services firm, you can feel safe that a team of experts will ensure that downtime is minimized leading to a happier and less frustrated workforce.

Being a boss isn’t easy, but you should never underestimate the importance of keeping your employees happy.