5 Ways to Keep Your Employees Happy and Productive

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”

If there is another major thing a company should focus on, it should be the happiness and well-being of their most valuable asset – their employees.

Plenty of studies have found connections between employee happiness and higher workplace productivity. Here are some key statistics worth considering.

In a report entitled The Financial Impact of a Positive Employee Experience (2018), researchers and psychologists created an Employee Experience Index (EXI) that measures employees’ personal workplace experience in terms of belonging, purpose, achievement, happiness, and vigor. Their key findings? Organizations who got the highest score in employee experience reported nearly 3x the return on assets and 2x their return sales.

Image from Rawpixel

When employees are highly engaged, organizations become successful. According to the 2017 Gallup report, highly engaged teams show 21% greater profitability, 41% reduction in absenteeism and 59% less turnover. In addition, employees who feel their voices are heard at work are nearly 5x (4.6) more likely empowered to perform their best work as revealed by the 2018 Salesforce report.

Here are some effective ways to help you keep your employees happy, satisfied and productive.

1. Set clear goals and expectations

According to Psychologists, people who are trying to meet a specific, challenging goal are the ones that perform the best and the hardest. Also, one study from the University of Alberta found that employees who consider their jobs meaningful showed a 60% drop in absenteeism and a 75% reduction in turnover.

How to set goals for your employees? Here are some tips to keep in mind:

Goals must align with the organization’s mission and strategy.
They must be clear and easy to understand.
They must be accepted and recognized as important by everyone who will have to implement them.
Progress towards goals must be measurable.
Goals must be framed in time, with clear beginning and ending points.
They should be supported by rewards. It does not have to be material rewards all the time. Just by saying job well-done makes your employee feel valued and important.
They should be challenging, but achievable.

(From “The Wall Street Journal Guide to Management” by Alan Murray)

2. Prioritize a harmonious good work-life balance

Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is critical to improving all aspects of a person’s wellbeing –physical, emotional, and mental health, including career health. Having a good work-life balance benefits both employees and employers.

"Employees who are generally healthy can be more productive, miss less work, and have fewer healthcare-related expenses," said the career expert and Amplio Recruiting CEO Chris Chancey in an interview with the Business News Daily. After conducting research on 50,000 global workers, the Corporate Executive board found that employees with good work-life balance work 21% harder than those who don't.

Here’s what your business can do to support a better work-life balance:

Provide employees with flexible work arrangements such as flexible working hours, working at home, and part-time work.
Providing appropriate technology to aid daily tasks and help employees become organized and productive.
Establish boundaries such as by encouraging employees to leave the office on time.
Encourage staff to take advantage of their annual leave so they can fully de-stress and come back to work feeling more energized and productive.
Support and understand your employee’s family commitments such as allowing them to leave a bit earlier to collect their kids from school.
Ensure that your staff have time to exercise, meditate and eat healthy foods. These activities can help them feel active and less stressed.
Set time aside intended for discussing with your employees what can be done to improve their situation and bring their work-life balance to a better place.

(Tips from Robert Half Recruitment)

Image from Pexels

3. Recognize their progress and make them feel “valued”

Giving constructive criticisms can help employees grow and improve their performance. While this is important, it’s also great to appreciate their success, whether it’s big or small. A study from Achiever revealed that 93% of employees are hoping to be recognized at least once per quarter.

A simple recognition such as acknowledging them individually and being attentive to their progress can make a big difference. You will be surprised how much a simple “thank you” and “good job” can boost their confidence and productivity. In fact, a recent study shows that 94% of employees who receive positive recognition on a daily basis reported being satisfied with their company.

4. Create a culture of transparency and feedback

Building a culture of transparency, trust and feedback are necessary for a number of reasons. Thus, it should be at the top of every organization's culture code. An employee engagement survey from Harvard Business Review showed that 70 percent of the surveyed participants say they are most engaged when a senior leadership leader provides them continuously with updates and company strategy.

Here are three ways a company can build a transparent culture:

Hold a weekly all-hands meeting centered on transparency sets the tone for your company. In addition, sharing important company information in a candid way encourages employees to do the same.
Give your employees an anonymous suggestion box to ask for their feedback and act on it.
Give your employees a voice and help them stay connected. You can do this by using an office-networking tool to give your employees a platform for sharing across groups and helping people learn from each other

(Tips from Entrepreneur)

5. Facilitate your employees' career success

The job market and economy are improving, on the other hand, the number of employees willing to leave their current job for better opportunities is also increasing. The 2017 survey American Psychological Association’s Center for Organizational Excellence found that nearly half of U.S. employees are worried about their career future.

Career development plans are a great way to facilitate your employee’s success as this provide them with workplace flexibility and further develop their skills. Here are 6 steps to build your employee’s career path:

Check thoroughly at the skills the company lacks in or needs to grow in the future to determine how much emphasis to place on developing their existing employee pool vs. hiring and training new employees.
Get an accurate and up-to-date picture of the company’s current workforce as well as the various roles that they fill, either officially or unofficially.
Establish a Career Advancement Process with the following characteristics: It should reward results, engage with the employee, track top talent, and promote diversity
Make sure that the career development plan covers alternative advancement routes such as using raises and bonuses, or providing them with an assistant to take over their less critical responsibilities.
Advertise the career advancement opportunities so employees will feel more motivated to work towards it.
Consider investing in employee training programs to help you identify the top performers and the most suitable employees for different roles.

(Steps from eLearning Industry)

Image from Pexels

Employee Happiness is an Inside Job

Do you have happy, productive employees? Happy employees benefit everyone. If you would like to improve your people’s satisfaction and productivity level, Life Intelligence Group can help. Find out how our Agile services and tools can promote employee happiness in an easy yet advanced way! Visit our website: https://www.lifeintelligencegroup.com/ for complete details.

Introducing an Agile tool for you and your team

If you're looking for an agile tool to help you and your team build a habit of success, check out TaskSpur. It's a goal management and productivity app to help you manage your personal, professional, health, and financial goals in one place.

Check it out!

Download TaskSpur on Android | Download TaskSpur on your iPhone

Image Source:

Rawpixel
Unsplash

Reference: