In today’s day and age, when the work environment is such that your employees are one good offer away from leaving your company. It has become ever so imperative that you do all that you can (as an employer) to retain your employees and keep them happy and motivated so that at the end of the day your customers are happy and motivated.
No company wants its attrition rate to increase any more than it already is. So today we are going to share 12 simple ways that you can use to keep your employees happy and motivated.
But first, understand why you should even bother about making everyone happy in your company.
- Happy employees are the only ones who are proactive, creative, and productive. Their chances of quitting are very less
- Being honest with them and staying transparent in every action increases their trust in you
- Happy employees feel appreciated and valued
So without any ado. Let’s dive into these 12 ways to keep your team happy and ultimately take your business to a newer height.
1. Focus on creating work-life balance: Gone is the time when you could engage your employees continuously day and night into completing deadlines. Earlier in the 80s and 90s, people would work for survival. So they’d sacrifice their time and work relentlessly.
But today it is not about survival. People now want a work-life balance and a better quality of life.
2. Make your employees part of the picture
One thing that you should do with your employees is you can make them part of the bigger picture. They should feel connected with the company and a part of a bigger mission. Everybody should get treated equally, and everybody’s contribution must be valued.
Keep clear and frequent communication. You’ll see the difference in 6 months.
3. Honesty and transparency are the best policies
Now showing that you are concerned about employee issues is one thing. But it is what you do afterwards that matters for retention.
“Do you act to resolve their concerns and issues?”
You should always act fast in taking action on feedback and complaints. Always be transparent in issuing your acknowledgement and keep them in the loop.
Communicate your top areas of success and also the aspects where you need improvement from them. Doing these simple things takes your connection with your employees to a new level.
4. Grant more time for Vacation
The employees who perform the best deserve some incremental time for a vacation. This particular set of your employees are the heroes of your company and they know how to get their job done. They deserve some time off to chill and relax.
5. Give them a raise: Nothing works better than seeing your monthly salary grow by 15-20% when you give 100% to your job. Recognize those employees and give them the raise that they deserve. You can choose to give a raise regardless of the “official time” for the raise. You do not always have to wait 6 months or 1 year to recognize those employees.
6. Encourage communication
As a business owner, you should develop spaces where employees can gather, communicate, and share their ideas. Make the casual conversations collaborative sessions where employees can contribute. Go the extra mile and make an effort to be inviting and encouraging starting with snacks and beverages and arranging nice seating for them.
7. Create and extend pathways to their career.
Many employees leave an organization because they think that there are no more career opportunities for them in their company. So what you can do is provide developmental support to them that offers them training and career mentoring. Doing all that you can to enhance their skill set will make them believe that you want them to grow.
It’s become imperative for businesses to have these training sessions.
Also, make sure that employees are aware that there are different training programs for different roles in the company.
8. Build a positive work environment
A positive environment breeds positive employees. So, what you can do is, publicly praise an employee’s accomplishments, host a group lunch, reward them with an outing, and organize activities for the whole office.
You can also provide opportunities to your employees to grow and develop, either by assigning new responsibilities desired by them, helping them learn new skills, making them in charge of certain meetings, or sending them on a business trip.
9. Give them new challenges
Oftentimes, employees can think of leaving an organization because they are not receiving any new challenges, any new projects, that would help them to solve liver problems and ultimately grow in experience.
You should consistently reward your team with higher-value projects so that they get a new problem to solve and progress.
10. Set an example.
As the boss of your company, you should not underestimate the importance of walking into the office with a smile on your face and make sure that you give an equal amount of importance to everyone.
11. Appreciate more
It is more likely that your employees will leave because they are less appreciated rather than because they receive less money.
Have a positive culture and a healthy workplace environment. It helps a lot, as It triggers better teamwork and communication which further increases your employee's engagement and provides them opportunities to learn from each other.
Give a shout-out to people at all levels of your company for what great work they do and show absolute professionalism. These little kudos here and there will cost you nothing but they will provide some recognition to your employee for the good job they have done. One can say that it is a form of social currency which everybody values highly.
12. Extra Benefits.
Apart from what an employee gets paid. You should take extra steps in taking care of your employees. You can pick a Group Health Insurance plan from J Insurance and provide all your employee's health insurance in one go. There are also other types of insurance cover that you can give to your loyal employees like life insurance.
Other small benefits like dental and optics are also much appreciated by the employees.
Lastly, there are gym memberships and transit perks that keep your employees satisfied. Giving these benefits to your employees shows that you truly care about your employees.
How do all these efforts ultimately help you grow?
1. Happy employees contribute more
Workers make better decisions and focus more on work when they are satisfied. When the morale of an employee is high they involve themselves more and they take calculated risks.
2. Sad workers quit.
When the workers are not happy they quit. Now in most cases, it is the toxic bosses that make workers unhappy. If there is also no work-life balance in the company then workers quit and employee turnover increases.
Now all this will lead to additional work on you to hire more people and spend more money on hiring, training, and orientation.
3. Happy employees become more innovative.
A recent study by Adobe has found that satisfied employees are more creative and innovative, which is good for your company.
4. Happy employees keep your customers happy.
When your employees are happy then they give it their all to making your customers happy. And when your customers are happy, you will be happy.
Interactions with your customers and staff should be positive and it is imperative to increase customer satisfaction.
5. Unsatisfied employees work less.
Unsatisfied or unhappy employees, as obvious as it might be, tend to work less. Sure there are exceptions but a happy employee will always get more work done than an unhappy employee.
6. Happiness spreads
Happiness is contagious and it has an impact on the energy levels of the whole team. It is ultimately upon you, whether you create a healthy and happy work environment or you choose to not make it a priority. If you do, however, it channelizes a positive vibe throughout your business and boosts the morale of all the team members, and strengthens their relationships.
That was all about how you as an entrepreneur or business owner make efforts to make your employees happy so that everybody, your employees, you, your company, and your customers grow.
If you gained some value from this post then check out J Insurance. If you’re a business owner and looking for a reliable insurance partner to provide Group Health Insurance or any other commercial insurance like fire insurance, overseas travel cover, and workmen compensation insurance then you can check us out.
Try using our insurance calculator feature that helps you calculate quotations for your policy and helps you choose the best and most affordable insurance policy from a variety of insurance policies.
