7 Ways to Keep Your Employees Happy and Motivated

Sometimes, contract disputes are unavoidable in business but there are steps you can take to keep your employees happy to minimise the risk. Keeping your employees motivated is essential to having a productive workforce which in turn means business success.

There are many ways to keep your employees happy and motivated, from providing flexible working through to regular pay reviews. But there are pitfalls to having a work from home workforce, too. You may want to seek out working from home legal advice if you need to, or contact a financial advisor if you’re struggling with your business’s outgoings. Just don’t let your employees suffer as a result of your poor management. 

We understand it can be tricky running a business at times, so here are seven simple reminders for creating a successful workforce…

Trust Your Staff

Trusting your staff is paramount to business success. Trust your employees enough to work from home, manage their own workload, and empower them to make decisions on their own. 

Ultimately, this helps to develop their life skills and prepares them to take on more responsibility which will make them feel valued. If you take this advice on board, it’s likely your employees will remain happy and stay with your company for longer.

Creating a culture of trust and respect also means that employees are more likely to come to you if they are having issues or don’t quite understand a task. This again creates a more productive workforce. 

Keeping the Whole Team in the Picture

Keeping the whole team involved, whether it’s with big or small decisions, such as setting goals or where the next work social will be, helps towards making the team feel included. 

Ensuring everyone knows the bigger picture means everyone will be working towards the same overarching goal and each individual will understand what they need to do. Simple things that managers and senior staff assume are common knowledge, might not be, so it’s important to check in with the team by holding regular company meetings. 

Additionally, it’s a good idea to be transparent about how the business is performing, to motivate your staff to try harder or continue their good work. You could share details of your company’s growth in the present year and how it fares compared to the previous years.  Employees might also have some interesting ways to improve the business as they could be regularly getting feedback from customers.

Ensuring your employees are in the know about changes to the workplace or the business will help to ease any frustration or questions. With stress and upset comes a lack of motivation in your employees which could lead to employees leaving.

No one wants to feel like they are the only person who doesn’t know what is going on, and it’s a sure way to make an employee question their value within the team.  A workplace newsletter and monthly company meetings are great places to start. 

Encourage Personal Development

Professional development is arguably one of the biggest ways to motivate your employees, make them feel valued and want to stay at the business. 

Get to know your employees on a personal level and find out what their goals and aspirations are. Try to figure out how you can support them to achieve these too. It could be through training courses, shadowing other members of the team, or starting something completely new within the business!

What might help one member of the team might also be something the wider team would benefit from too.

Recognise and Reward Hard Work 

Recognising and rewarding hard work is a great way to make employees feel valued and motivate them to continue excelling. If you don’t recognise employee’s hard work, they’ll stop working as hard and ultimately disengage from the business.

Recognition can be translated verbally, in a monthly company newsletter or by offering work perks such as food-based rewards, vouchers or additional time off.

Provide the Tools and Resources for Success

There is nothing more frustrating and demotivating than being expected to do something but not having the tools or resources in place to do so to a high standard. 

Ensure your workplace has the processes, software, and relevant equipment in place so that your staff members can perform.  If employees are struggling with a particular piece of software, make sure to implement training.

Listen to Your Employees

Motivation is never a one-size-fits-all approach, and it means listening to your employees find out what they want from their job role and the business to keep them motivated. 

Make sure to put time aside for one-to-one meetings as well as company meetings to understand how your employees are feeling and if any changes need to be implemented to make them happy. Remember everyone’s situation is different so you might need to put multiple processes in place. 

Workplace Flexibility

According to a study in the UK, research found that 71 per cent of UK workers want flexible work options to stay after the COVID-19 crisis. These figures show that it’s important for employers to consider a flexible working approach if they want to retain and attract the best talent.  

There might be many different reasons that employees want flexibility in their working days or working hours, but it is an employer’s responsibility to cater to their employee’s needs. Especially if you want to keep your staff happy.

Working from home can also improve an employee’s work-life balance and will prevent burnout, making them happier and more productive in the long run. If you’re considering embracing a predominately remote workforce, make sure to seek working from home legal advice to guide you through the process. 

Are You Ready to Implement These Steps in Your Workplace?

In this article, we’ve covered seven top tips for creating a happy and motivated workplace. 

There are other perks such as team lunches, work socials and a great physical workspace that will help to keep employees happy and attract new talent, but these aren’t the only things employees are looking for anymore. Make sure you do your own research around why creating a happy workplace is so important.

What keeps you motivated at work? Let us know in the comments below.