One essential lesson about running a business that many entrepreneurs realize very quickly is how important employee morale is. If your staff is happy, it will lead your team to increased productivity, a better work environment, and more revenue for your company. Employees who aren’t happy often create a worse turnover and can damage the work culture your company is working hard at building. More companies than ever are investing time and resources to discover the vast array of products and services that help boost employee morale. Here are eight ways to make your staff feel happier and more excited about working for you.
1. Wellness Services
Many companies are realizing how valuable an employee wellness plan is for maintaining a healthy and productive staff. There are a variety of service options for employee wellness programs that go beyond the services offered by health insurance. An employee wellness program typically focuses on providing staff with choices and incentives to practice healthy habits like exercising, visiting their doctors, losing weight, and quitting smoking. Pampering your team with a quick yoga or meditation session (even once a month!) can help inspire them to live a healthier life. Long term programs can get costly, but, research has shown that the financial investment pays off.
2. Professional Development
Another way to boost morale at your company is to offer rewarding professional development opportunities. Providing your staff with ways to improve their knowledge and further their career could help in two ways. First, employees gain additional expertise in their current role. Secondly, professional development helps an employee get even more value from working at your company and could reduce attrition and improve loyalty. Let’s not forget to mention that all this ‘professional development’ ends up improving your company.
3. Team Building Experiences
Encouraging healthy and harmonious work relationships among your staff can be a challenge without outside help. Many organizations look to provide team building experiences in the form of overnight retreats or a day spent at an outdoor adventure facility. Team building exercises offer many benefits to your company, such as improved morale, increased trust, and more understanding among the people who work for you.
4. Flexible Leave
Leave is another important thing to employees, especially as family situations change. Nothing is more of a morale killer to your employees if you don’t allow staff members to take leave when they need it. While it’s true that there are occasions when some employees may take advantage of a flexible leave program, offering one has more plusses than minuses.
5. Open Door Policies
Communication is another key component of a motivated and successful staff. Business owners can encourage more honest and open communication by maintaining an open door policy at the office. This means that anytime there is a problem going on in your organization, staff should feel comfortable going directly to the top and speaking to the owners about any issues. If you don’t like to leave your door open, set aside a certain time for office hours and let anyone in the company be able to sign up. You can demonstrate your commitment to communication by spending time getting to know your employees.
6. Discount Programs
Offering useful discount programs or subsidies to your workers is another way you can make your workplace morale improve. If your company is located in a busy city, consider providing parking or public transportation discounts. If your company can’t afford a wellness program, like the one mentioned above, try partnering with a local gym. Large corporations that have many working parents on their staff may want to look into providing childcare discounts or even in-office babysitting services. These investments can help boost your staff’s long-term staying power.
7. Spectacular Events
Having regular corporate events to celebrate your staff members is another way to boost morale at the office. Firms like Wekudo have best price guarantees to save your team money and takes care of the entire event planning so you don’t have to waste your precious office time either. They offer a selection of over 3,000+ hand-vetted experiences beyond celebrations, like corporate cooking classes, team sports competitions, retreats, and community philanthropy projects. This way, your office feels rewarded and appreciated for all their hard work throughout the year.
8. Comprehensive Benefits
The final way your company can keep morale high is with your benefits packages. At a minimum, you need to offer a complete health care benefits solution to your workers. Going beyond this basic offering will additionally show how much you value your employees. Consider providing options like tuition reimbursement, retirement savings assistance, paid parental leave, and more to keep your staff working at their best.
Improving employee morale is one of the best ways you can get more from your staff. If you want to keep the most talented people working for you and not to the competition, show them how much you care and keep them motivated and content. You’ll be surprised that you can see the ROI faster than you thought.
