Keeping your staff happy in their various roles is often overlooked, and there’s little evidence of any attempt to improve the quality of life for employees in many businesses. The way that your staff view you and your company will have such a huge impact on how they carry out their work, as a bitter or unhappy employee will complete tasks to a bad standard with little care or passion. Luckily, it’s a very simple process to turn your whole ethos around and create a positive working environment in which every employee is motivated and appreciated. By doing following the steps below you can make sure that each member of your staff arrives at their workstation every morning with a smile on their face and the right attitude to get the work done in a productive and timely manor and be a valued addition to your business. 

Offer Room To Grow

In order to properly encourage your staff to perform to the best of their ability, you have to offer them the prospect of growing and advancing onto a more senior position. The best leaders are the ones who once followed, as they can relate to every level of employee and should in theory have the necessary experience and knowledge to require less training on your company specifics. In order to allow internal staff to progress to more official roles with a greater responsibility, you may need to put them through some kind of extra education to adequately improve upon their technical knowledge and help them gain the necessary skills and experience to make the leap from their previous role. If you opt for something like an apprenticeship you can still keep your employees at work for most of the time they spend completing the course, but you will need to search for the relevant endpoint assessment organisations to test their knowledge and allow them to gain that all important qualification. By offering room to grow, your employees will have a constant motivation to work that little bit harder in order to prove themselves to you, in an attempt to gain a better role that offers more pay and privileges. 

Promote Good Health

Ensuring good health among all of your employees will actually benefit your business a lot more than you might think. If you totalled all of the days off that your staff have taken due to illness, you will likely see a greater number than you had originally expected. However, if you constantly promote your staff to follow a healthy lifestyle, and provide them with the means to do this in the workplace too, you will see that number begin to fall. Many workers will bring in their own lunch from home, which could be full of bad sugars and fats that will disrupt their energy levels and possibly have an impact on the quality of their work and their potential productivity. By offering some nutritious options on site, you can help to increase your staffs focus and vigour to return from lunch satisfied and ready to complete their remaining tasks for the day. You will also be showing them that you care about their wellbeing, which will make them feel more valued and respected in the workplace. To better their productivity even further, encourage your workforce to take breaks frequently if they stay seated throughout their usual working day, as getting up from your desk for a short walk around will encourage their blood flow and help them to stay aware and alert instead of slumped in their chair. 

Reward Quality Work

One of the best ways to motivate your staff and positively impact upon both their satisfaction and productivity is by rewarding them for any quality work they produce. Even by passing on some kind words of praise or congratulations when they have done well, you will be able to make your staff members feel appreciated and help them to strive towards completing all of their work to the same great quality. Offering a monetary incentive such as an end of year bonus for those who particularly excel, such as surpassing a certain number of sales or showing an excess of commitment and dedication, can usually persuade employees more than anything else to put in a bit more effort in their day to day tasks. Those who receive the benefits will be more than satisfied with what they have achieved, and will want to have the same feeling again the following year. You will also have a much better relationship with your workforce, as they will respect you and want to gain your respect in return. 

Efficient Communication

Being able to communicate with every member of your workforce in an efficient way is key to both productivity and job satisfaction. If you fail to make things known or disclose the relevant information, results can be catastrophic and subsequently respect and motivation can be lost entirely. There is really no such thing as too much communication, and it’s really important that you can create an open and honest environment inside which your staff can share their thoughts and understand everything they need to know about their job role and what you expect from them. Set an example by always being sincere but direct during every conversation and meeting, as you as owner of the business are the front face of everything and they will look up to for inspiration on how everything should be done and handled. They can then implement these practices during their own tasks, and greatly improve the standard of their performance during group work and boost their productivity and efficiency.

These tips should help you to see how easy it can be to keep your employees satisfied in their role and encourage them to be as productive as possible during every shift they attend. Show them you care about their wellbeing and help them to acknowledge the rewards they can achieve by putting in a little more effort and dedication to the tasks they complete.