What’s the Best Way to Keep Your Staff Happy?

Happy employees make happy clients and customers. Here’s a check list of all the things you should be doing, to keep your staff – and therefore your clients and customers – happy. How many are you doing?

  • Improve their engagement with your company – low cost options include offering flexibility, the opportunity to buy or sell holiday and working from home
  • Cheer everyone up – buy them food at work
  • Give lots of praise – in public, if necessary
  • Recognise their achievements – a lot
  • Be reassuring (but realistic) about job security
  • Be flexible about working hours and opportunities to improve their work life balance
  • Be open, honest and involved with your team
  • Keep them in touch with all the news – good or bad
  • Keep up with employees training and development – it does not need to cost a lot. Don’t abandon development and new opportunities. Job training is perceived as a value
  • Develop your company culture – involve everyone in decisions and provide opportunities for staff who don’t normally work together to get to know each other
  • Offer chances to put forward suggestions – it could save you a fortune and it increases the sense of ownership and belonging
  • Provide regular team meetings to reinforce the company culture and beliefs
  • Think about using a promotion as a low cost way of improving self-esteem and self-worth
  • Treat everyone with respect – it doesn’t cost anything and it improves motivation.

How well did you score? What more could you be doing to keep your staff happy?

Is your HR team proactive?

Top tips to ensure proactive success:

  • Have in place well designed policies and procedures to cover all business needs and eventualities and ensure every part of your business is operating like a well-oiled machine.
  • Prepare comprehensive job descriptions for every employee and evaluate regularly.
  • Set objectives / targets to provide focus for all parties on what needs to be achieved both short and long term and give feedback regularly.
  • Give praise for work well done and deal with instances of poor performance before they become a major issue.
  • Keep up to date with the latest employment legislation? And, always ensure you are exercising your duty of care towards the welfare and development of your employees.
  • Communicate with your employees and keep them informed, engaged and focussed on your strategic goals. Also, take a bottom-up approach that allows employees to voice their concerns and ideas.
  • Provide opportunities for training and career progression wherever possible.