We’ve all heard that Confucius quote about happy employees. “Choose a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life”. When you keep your employees happy at work, they’re more engaged, 12% more productive, and they take significantly fewer sick days. However, a Gallup report shows that 63% of employees are not engaged, and 24% of them are actively disengaged from their organization, which means they’re less likely to take an active interest in the organization’s goals or outcomes, and more likely to spread discontent among coworkers.
So, how can you make sure that your employees don’t become another statistic? Here are 5 simple ways to have your organization full of happy employees
#1: Create a Positive Work Environment
Your employees spend roughly one-third of their lives at work. It should be a positive experience for them. Let your employees customize their space with things that inspire and motivate them – it can provide a level of positivity that increases employee happiness.
Also, do your employees have the tools they need to do their jobs properly? Providing a top-of-the-line set of productivity tools, like Office 365, is one of the key ways to have happy employees at your organization. For example, SharePoint is a great tool to help employees manage content across various devices they use, and easily collaborate on a document with colleagues simultaneously. Being able to easily collaborate on a document creates a positive work environment as it increases productivity and employee satisfaction.
#2: Make Work/Life Balance a Priority
Another way to have happy employees is to help them balance work and life. There’s a lot of stress that comes from trying to figure out how to balance work and home life. Extracurricular activities, children or pets, spouses… when employees are worried about how to balance all of their obligations, it can take a toll on their health.
In this day and age, with Cloud capabilities for employees, it’s easy for many employers to allow their employees to work from home without worrying about a loss of productivity. Do you have employees who spend hours commuting to work on a daily basis? Allow them to work from home on days where it’s non-essential for them to travel. Tools like Skype for Business reduces the need to commute in to the office by providing conference calling, video capabilities, and screen sharing opportunities.
#3: Promote Professional Development
In many cases, employee satisfaction and happiness comes from knowing that there is room for growth within the company, or from knowing that their employers are interested in their professional development. For many employees, knowing there’s a career pathway can contribute to their happiness and satisfaction while at work.
One area that you could consider with regard to professional development is to provide new tools/technology for your employees and the adequate training to help them adapt to using them. As a technology company, ProServeIT always tries to be on top of new technology, and provide anything/everything that our employees need to be properly trained, which increases our staff’s level of satisfaction in their jobs.
Not only do these things contribute to employee happiness, but this increased knowledge also benefits the organization, as well.
#4: Encourage Your Employees to Socialize Outside of Work
Studies have shown that close work friendships boost employee satisfaction by up to 50%. Keeping that in mind, it’s important to encourage your employees to socialize outside of work. Setting up social nights or extracurricular events, or encouraging them to join a sports team together helps to build that camaraderie and creates lasting work friendships.
#5: Always Say “Thank You”
As an employer, it’s important that your employees know that you’re thankful for their hard work. After all, without them, you might not be in business! This tip is the simplest way to increase employee happiness and satisfaction, and yet, in many cases, it’s the least used. Providing company-wide recognition for a job well done also contributes to employee happiness. Using a social platform can be a good way to say kudos to your employees.
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