While you might think that higher wages will keep your staff happy – it won’t.
Research shows there are many other (cheaper) ways to keep happy employees. It’s about using your dollars to improve the time people spend at work: build a better work culture and make staff feel appreciated.
How to do it? Below we give some tips that are sure to surprise you!
1. Improve the physical environment
Spoil your staff with quality office furniture. Well-designed workstations, sit-to-stand desks, office chairs that encourage good posture and open-office workstations achieve an enormous return on investment. Your staff will have better posture, have a lower risk of repetitive strain injuries (your insurance guy will like that), and be better placed to put their best into your business.
Well-designed office spaces can also encourage productivity and better work culture through encouraging collaboration and teamwork. Best of all, quality furniture tells your staff you value them, and gives a better image of your business to visiting guests.
2. Let them eat cake!
Actually, better yet, provide a big fruit bowl and good quality tea and coffee. This tells them you care, costs you very little, and promotes good health. What’s not to like? You’ll be surprised at the opportunities for cross-pollination of work ideas as people cluster around the coffee machine work-shopping issues.
Before you know it Jim from IT has created a custom solution for Halima in HR so she can get her tax receipts into the system the right way. In return, she found him an intern to assist with his office-wide software updates. Problems (and possible solutions) they would never have known about if they weren’t making their morning macchiato at the same time.
3. Creative Rewards for Hard Work and Happy Employees
It costs very little to demonstrate your appreciation, to thank staff for a big job done well. Some workplaces have implemented a ‘lucky-dip’ of rewards, where staff chose a card from a pot and written on the card is their reward. The cards can have any number of ideas, from massage vouchers and sports event or cinema tickets to a free dinner-for-two.
You can offer car-washes, gym memberships, or even a pass for a day off work on the cards in your office ‘lucky-dip’. The sky is the limit!
4. Fuse-Ball, Ping-Pong or Board Games
Big companies in Palo Alto competing for technology and employees have known this for a while – creative workplace experiences attract and motivate staff. Putting in a Ping-Pong table, Fuse Ball or supplying Board Games in a common area gives staff a place to relax.
Psychologists tell us that when you distract yourself from a problem, you free up your subconscious to busily work away at it. Don’t believe it? Think about how often have you had your ‘aha moment’ in the shower, at 3 am, or while out on a jog?
Like all the tips here, this gives your happy employees as well as better productivity. Think about where you can free up some space and build creativity and fun into your workplace.
Happy Staff, Happy Work Environment
So there you have it – some research-backed fun and creative tips for happy employees that won’t break the bank.
What are you waiting for? Time to prep the office announcement!
