Employee productivity, employee morale, and company culture go hand-in-hand — if your employees are productive and happy, they’re more likely to remain with your company and do their jobs to the best of their ability. This ensures you retain top talent and keep other companies from luring them away. Boosting employee productivity and morale is instrumental in the success of your business, but it won’t happen overnight.
Happy Employees Means Happy Customers
Boosting employee morale and productivity will increase the efficiency of your workforce, improve work-life balance for you and your employees, and help with focus. If you want to see an improvement in your business, start by noticing any signs that employees are unhappy. You can then take steps to address those issues head-on, such as by listening to and receiving suggestions for how they might improve their work-life balance and offering more flexible schedules or hybrid working. Asking for input from your staff is a great way to find out what’s going on and try to fix things before they get worse.
Recognize Performance
Make sure you’re recognizing your employees’ accomplishments. Recognizing performance can lead to improved focus, higher efficiency, and greater employee engagement. Consider these tips for creating a positive work environment where people feel appreciated and motivated:
- Office Awards – give out awards to celebrate anniversaries, recognition of anniversaries, or recognition of success.
- Appreciate Hard Work – thank employees for their hard work with handwritten cards, phone calls, bonuses, gifts, or even by giving them coffee or lunch on the house.
- Recognize Collaboration – get everyone together in one room at least once per week to brainstorm new ideas and come up with solutions to problems.
Listen and Learn
There’s a lot of potential to improve employee morale and productivity by implementing these four suggestions:
- Ask Questions
- Listen
- Implement Suggestions
- Improve the Work Environment
The first step is learning to listen and the next is learning to ask questions. It’s important for employers to not only listen but also ask questions so they can find out what their employees need from them in order to be more engaged.
Next, it is vital for employers to implement suggestions from their employees and make changes that will improve the work environment, like adding more breaks or providing a healthier workplace.
Finally, encourage your employees to enjoy the balance between work life and personal life; this will help you maintain high levels of employee engagement while improving overall happiness and productivity in the workplace.
Allow for Freedom
Some of the best ways to boost employee morale are to allow for creativity and freedom, encourage nontraditional approaches, promote philanthropy, celebrate employee successes and implement a hybrid work environment.
In an effort to boost morale, some employers have been implementing a hybrid work environment where employees can choose the hours that they want to work in order to accommodate their personal needs. In addition to getting more done in less time than in traditional workplaces, this also helps with improving focus. To improve focus, some employers encourage nontraditional approaches like flexibility and open-space layouts so employees can make better use of their time.
Encourage Boundaries and Work-Life Balance
A healthy work/life balance is important for both employers and employees because when people spend too much time at work or obsess over every minute detail, productivity suffers, and mental health declines. When people feel unappreciated by bosses or when they’re bored from repetitive tasks day after day, it’s easy to get burned out quickly.
Communication is Key
There are many ways to keep employees informed about what is happening in the company. Having an all-hands meeting once a week to check in with each other is vital. This allows you, the boss, to know what is and is not working. Additionally, help your team.
For example, managers should not ask an employee to do something that they, the manager, are not willing to do. Communicate and work in tandem with employees to make sure everyone is following your lead when it comes to how you want the company to operate. After all, you’re the expert.
Communicate openly with your team, respect their time, and allow for feedback from them as well. Respect starts at the top and trickles down to everyone.
