We all know that the environment you work in has a big impact on how you feel, but did you know as adults we spend over two thirds of our life at work!! a very sobering thought indeed…
As an employer you have the greatest influence on the experience employees have in the workplace, so creating a positive workplace where your employees have mutual respect, feel valued and appreciated is vitally important to maintaining happy employees.
We list below a few ways in which we can help you achieve this:
- Positive behaviour – Model positive and respectful behavior in your interactions – be accountable, don’t play the blame game, encourage an environment where it’s okay to make mistakes and move forward.
- Create clear goals – Employees like to know that the job they are doing is making a difference. By creating goals and how each person is responsible for achieving them, it motivates and inspires an air of striving for betterment in the workplace.
- Acknowledge accomplishments – It is a proven fact that employees respond to praise and appreciation expressed through recognition of their good work, because it reinforces their work is valued. When employees feel like this, their satisfaction and productivity rises and they are motivated to keep up or improve their good work. Doesn’t everyone appreciate a ‘pat on the back’ to make them feel good, I know I do!
- Listen to employee feedback – As we know feedback whether good or bad is fundamental in the workplace. You need to discuss with employees what they have accomplished and what is going well in their job, a good way of making sure you make good use of their strengths or demonstrate what they can improve upon.
- Communicate often – Keep employees in the loop with frequent updates. This helps keep people connected and feeling part of the larger team. Provide regular feedback including constructive feedback and not just at performance review time. Employees want to know how they are doing along the way.
- Reward good work – In the current climate, as an employer you may not always be able to reward by means of a pay-rise, but you could implement exciting incentives that give the employee something tangible to work towards. Gift cards are a good cost effective way to do this, and gives the employee the choice of what they want.
In time a positive workplace is more successful because it increases positive emotions and wellbeing and this improves employees relationships with each other and amplifies their abilities and their creativity. It buffers against negative experiences such as stress, improving employees’ ability to bounce back from challenges and difficulties while bolstering their health. And, it attracts employees, making them more loyal to the business. When businesses develop positive cultures they achieve significantly higher levels of organizational effectiveness — including financial performance, customer satisfaction, productivity, and employee engagement.
If your company have any great ideas of keeping morale high, we’d love to hear them, why not get in touch.
