Your employees are the lifeblood of your business and your most vital investment. If they’re not working with all hands to the pump, your business can quickly find itself cut adrift from the competition in no time at all. That’s why keeping them happy and motivated is essential.
If your employees are feeling down and bringing the business down with them, it’s time to do something about it. Here are 7 easy steps to take to boost employee morale.
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- Offer Perks and Incentives
We all know it’s true, there’s no point denying it. People respond to financial incentives. The first thing to do is make sure your employees are all getting paid a fair wage, and if they’re not, put it right! Then you might want to give bonuses out for high performance levels. Perks like shorter hours on Friday or dress down days can also help.
- Open Up Communication Channels
Your employees need to be able to communicate with you and their colleagues freely and easily at all times. Make sure you don’t exude a distant, superior attitude to your staff, or they’ll just feel like they can’t approach you with queries or concerns. Make it clear that you’re a team, all working towards the same ends.
- Encourage Healthy Living
Living healthily doesn’t just affect your body but also your mind. So, if you’re employees are entering the office in a fit, healthy condition, they’re more likely to bring about positive outcomes for your business. To help them, do the simple stuff like installing a water cooler and making sure the lunch options are all relatively healthy.
- Offer Support
Everyone faces problems in the workplace now and then. And the situation can be greatly helped if there is someone on hand to mediate and discuss the problems in order to resolve them quickly. Your human resources team could cover this. Make sure you have clear stress management systems in place and medical advice available.
- Hand Over Responsibilities
If your staff feel like they are in control of their work lives and have a degree of responsibility resting on their shoulders, they’ll be much more likely to work hard. Everyone likes to feel invested in their work, otherwise it will just seem meaningless and irrelevant. You could offer promotion opportunities or just stop micromanaging every situation for them.
- Organise Team Building Activities
Team building activities are difficult to get right. Not everyone will respond positively to what they might see as forced fun. But, on the other hand, if you get it right, they can go down and a storm and dramatically increase team cohesion. Don’t ask your employees to sacrifice their own time to attend and make sure they’re fun for everyone involved.
- Relax the Office
A tense office is not a productive office. Having a relaxed, chilled out office doesn’t have to mean a lazy one though! You need to strike the right balance so that your employees feel at ease but also want to work hard and strive for success throughout the day. This could be as easy as brightening up the office or adding a new coffee service.
