Employees Happy. As a CEO or company president, one of the most important elements of your job is ensuring your employee’s happiness. That’s right. While productivity and revenue of the company are crucial, none of it can take place without happy employees. As such, the top companies are now constantly looking at new ways to ensure employee satisfaction. Here are six ways that you can integrate happiness into the office every single day.
1. Maximize your space
First things first, the office space your employees work in does matter to the work they do. The physical layout of an office can impact worker happiness and productivity, so work hard as their boss to ensure that you set them up for that initial success. The ideal office will have a number of features built-in including windows (to avoid artificial light), live green plants for a natural feel, and healthy air to breathe. If your office is located in a polluted area be sure that you have an air quality filter that you change regularly.
Additionally, when it comes to physical workspace, having both individual and collaborative desks available can give your employees the ability to choose which space best aligns with their work style. While some individuals work best in a quiet and isolated environment, others work better when surrounded by people to bounce ideas off of and white noise. An office that offers both is the best solution for all employees.
You should also ensure that you have the proper equipment in your office. This includes a supply room with all the necessary office supplies (pens, sticky notes, paper, staplers, paper clips, etc.) for your employees to utilize when necessary. You should also have a kitchen or breakroom where they have the ability to access or store healthy food choices or snacks.
2. Create a transparent workplace
When you create a workplace, you also create a workplace culture. How do you want your employees to feel when they come to work? Do you want them to feel stressed out and anxious? Or relaxed and productive? The latter is much more conducive to a happy employee.
A great way to create a workplace in this type of environment is by being transparent with your expectations. From day one at orientation, inform your workers about your expectations and how they will come to know and understand various information in the office. What systems do you have in place for events, meetings, projects, and deadlines? Ensuring that everyone is on the same page about work is one of the best ways to increase motivation and productivity.
3. Allow growth
It’s hard to maintain motivation and productivity when there’s no room for growth. That next great promotion or raise is often what keeps employees going in a job, but if your employees never feel as though they can improve or obtain that next step, then why would they try harder each and every day? Why wouldn’t they just sit at their desks and pass time? Would you be happy in a job that you know you couldn’t move up in?
The truthful answer is…probably not.
Allowing growth at your company is essential to ensuring that employees feel that they have room to take risks, struggle, get support, improve, and grow. This once again goes back to creating a transparent culture at your office. Give your employees a clear direction on how they can seek growth in the company and make sure they know it is available. It is one of the best ways to ensure continual happiness and motivation.
4. Offer appreciation
From the time kids go to school, we’re shown that a little appreciation can go a long way. It’s why there are celebrations when children hit milestones, and then there’s “Teacher Appreciation Week” every year in May. Institute the same type of policy at your company for your employees. Understand that offering them appreciation for their hard work is how you can ensure that they feel content in their jobs. Motivating your entire staff can be as easy as catered lunch twice a month, holiday parties, surprise gift cards, employee of the month or the occasional raise. Acknowledgment for hard work is often one of the best ways to keep employees happy.
5. Treat everyone like adults
Employees often feel frustrated in workplaces where they are not shown faith in their abilities. Think about it, if someone hired you and then felt the need to constantly watch over you, correct you or do your job for you, would you feel frustrated? Would you wonder why you were hired at all? Helicopter bosses are the worst type of bosses out there. Don’t hover or try to hold anyone’s hand while they do their job. As tough as it can be to let go, you hired each and every employee on purpose. Have a little faith and give them the reigns to do that job. Treat everyone at your company like adults who have the ability to do their jobs.
6. Give benefits that matter
Communicating with employees to create the right benefits package for them is often key to their overall happiness. Do an office-wide survey to see what type of benefits are most important to keep your employees with your company. Are maternity and paternity leave crucial? Gym memberships? Retirement benefits? Daycare? Education benefits? Depending on the demographics in your office, you may not know exactly what they need until they tell you. You could be providing a benefit that hardly anyone uses or wants. When you provide the survey, be ready to listen and institute change. Your employees will be grateful for it!
Why do happy employees matter?
Point blank, happy employees are more productive and more engaged at the office. If you’re looking for a way to impact your productivity, then the first step is to look at the environment that you’re providing because it ultimately goes like this. A healthy work environment produces happy employees, happy employees are more engaged, engaged employees are more productive. By focusing on your employees, you’re creating a better company. Focus on your employees and the rest takes care of itself. There will be a sense of community in your workplace, there will be less stress, and there will be a positive workplace culture, which will make your company a desirable place to be. Happy employees matter because it makes the company better. Simple stuff!
How do you maintain your employees’ happiness?
At this point, you’ve probably bought into the idea that happy employees are important. No boss should intentionally be trying to make their employees unhappy. Yet, intentional happiness promotion can be difficult. Work can just be challenging and stressful in general. So, how do you go about maintaining your employees’ happiness? The six ways above are a good place to start, but more often than not it comes down to work-life balance and promoting it day in and day out. Employee happiness often becomes uncertain when work-life balance is called into question. This just so happens to be an issue that aligns with many of the ways that you can keep your employees happy above.
Employees who prioritize work-life balance have a strong sense of personal well-being. They see their lives at work and their lives at home as separate. As such, they want their workplace to recognize that they are not just employees. They’re people too. Employers can help support their employees (as human beings) in a number of ways.
- By creating a workplace environment where they are productive (see #1 and #2) or offering an alternative like remote work
- By allowing opportunities for growth (see #3)
- By recognizing their success (see #4)
- By giving benefits like health and wellness opportunities (see #6)
Highlight all the ways that you support work-life balance in your company culture, and you’ll be surprised just how much happier your employees are.
CommBox as a solution
There are a variety of benefits to utilizing CommBox, but a major one is just how much time it saves the employees of companies who use it. It provides a clear way for employees to communicate between individual departments in a variety of formats. The company-wide system increases transparency and allows everyone to have their voice heard. Visit here for more information.
Final thoughts
Happy employees are better workers. That’s an easy and simple way to keep up with how your workers are doing. Yet, on a more human level, maintaining your employees’ happiness is one of the most rewarding things that you can do as a CEO or company president. In doing so, you promote a company culture that truly cares for the people who keep it running. An office that promotes transparency, communication, growth, opportunities, and benefits for workers is ultimately one that will change the world for the better.
