When it comes to employee happiness, money isn’t everything. In fact, money doesn’t buy happiness. Still, ensuring your employees are satisfied with their job is in your company’s best interest. Employees who are happy with their job, tend to be more productive, engaged and loyal to their company.
So what are the top 4 ways your company can improve employee happiness (without dishing out more money)?
- Be Open and Honest
While paying your employees what they deserve is necessary for retention, at the end of the day, employees want transparency about the state of the company. When there is a lack of openness, rumors brew, and attitudes drop. It’s important to be honest about business mistakes and successes, unsatisfied customers, and most importantly, change. Change can mean a change in leadership, products or personnel. The way you announce change plays just as big a role as the change itself.
- Provide Training
Studies have shown that employees who receive formal training for their job, are generally more satisfied than those who receive little to no training. But training can go beyond just the initial onboarding stage.
An employee who receives continuous (monthly, quarterly or annual) training and education will feel that his or her company is invested in their career and growth, and as a result, he or she will feel that their job has more meaning.
- Build Relationships
A SHRM survey found that one’s relationship with his or her direct supervisor is among one of the important factors of his or her job satisfaction1. While you can’t expect your employees to be best friends with their managers, there are ways you can encourage a healthy working relationship.
For instance, you can set up communication style training for your employees. Have managers talk to their employees about their preferred communication methods. Additionally, provide fun activities where supervisors and employees can get to know each other outside of the work environment. Hold employee lunches or happy hours where workers can chat and get to know one another.
- Celebrate Accomplishments
There are many people out there who wonder why you must reward people for “just doing their job.” But when it comes to employee happiness, it is so much more than that. Structures of appreciation can be the difference between a satisfied, engaged employee and one who spends his lunch hour interviewing at other companies.
Plus celebrating worker’s successes doesn’t have to cost the company any money. While an achievement lunch or dinner may be nice, there are other ways to acknowledge a job well done. It can be as simple as thanking an employee for their hard work on a project at the start of a big meeting or in a company-wide email. You’d be surprised. A little recognition goes a long way.
Employee happiness is worth more than you know; it’s beneficial to both the employee and the company. Follow these 4 ways to improve employee happiness, and both you and your employees will thank you.
References:
- http://humanresources.about.com/od/Employee-Engagement/a/keys-for-improving-employee-satisfaction-and-engagement.htm