Top 10 tips for employee happiness
Happiness is an elusive thing, but keeping employees motivated, productive and happy is key to business success. What practical steps can employers take towards creating a great employee experience? Here are our top ten tips.
- Whether you’re a business owner, board member, HR professional or wellbeing champion, take it back to basics: how do you want your people to feel about coming to work? Then look at how to embed this into your organisational culture. A positive employee experience in touches on many things, including reward and employee benefits, HR policies and practices, and workplace wellbeing.
- Examine your values: what do you stand for? Is the concept of employee happiness included? The wording may be different (for example, at PES, our values include ‘doing the right thing’ and ‘a fun approach’), but they should reflect how your people are treated.
- Leadership behaviours: do your senior people walk the talk? Employees will become disengaged by disingenuous leaders. Research has shown that the more senior you are in a company, the happier you are1. Don’t assume your junior staff feel the same way! They are always going to be paid less, so think about what else you can do to improve their experience.
- Line managers: are they fair, supportive and able to listen to their teams? Dame Carol Black, the former health and work tsar, says that line managers are a key driver for workplace wellbeing, provided they are trained to support their teams and understand mental health2.
- Communication: does the right hand know what the left is doing? If the boss says one thing and the CEO says another, people will be confused. Aim for consistency to avoid chaos.
- Job roles: do they play to people’s strengths, offer development opportunities and reflect the business mission? Few things kill motivation more than a dull daily routine with no overall purpose to strive for.
- Employee benefits: are they easy to access and understand? Think about the ‘how’ as well as the ‘what’. If your benefits are offered online via a tailored, innovative platform that reflects your employer brand, employees are likely to have a better experience than if they have to fill in endless forms.
- Your physical environment: is it safe, pleasant and easy to get to? A long, traffic-fumed commute really adds to people’s stress levels. You can’t always help that, of course, but you can offer flexible start and finish times, and ensure that your office space has peaceful, appealing décor and restful breakout areas.
- Equipment and ergonomics: from comfortable desks and chairs to efficient, easy-to-use technology, do people have the tools they need to perform well? If inanimate objects frequently take the rap in your organisation, your kit may need updating.
- Pay and reward: can your employees look forward to salary increases? Money isn’t everything, but of course it’s an important part of your reward package so think about bonuses, incentives, commission and other forms of recognition. Seen in the context of these other things, employee benefits become more than just reward. They form part of a wider strategy to improve the employee experience on every level.
At PES, we believe firmly that happy people mean happy business. Ask us how we can help you achieve this.
1 Office Genie: Workplace Happiness Report, 2017
