Saturday, November 13, 2010

How to Keep Your Employees Happy Without Raising Wages?

The old saying, “a happy employee is a productive employee” has been proven to be true time and time again. Looking at many of the most successful companies today, many of them have a wide variety of ways they keep there employees happy and working. While it’s true that raising wages will always make employees happy, there are several other things you can do to ensure their happiness. These things will also probably be significantly cheaper than an across-the-board wage hike.

1. Flexible Hours
Allowing employees to have some flexibility is a great way to keep them happy. If a employee asks to leave work early to pick up their child from school, letting them go, and having them make up the time later (if you so desire) is much more effective in terms of employee happiness.

2. Casual Fridays and Other Themes
No employee likes wearing a suit and tie every day, so allowing employees specific days of the week to “dress down,” is a great way to keep them happy.

3.  Coffee and Tea for Everyone
 It’s no secret that a little caffeine can do wonders in terms of motivating an employee. It’s often difficult to complete tasks if you are run-down, or otherwise simply very tired. Giving employees a high quality coffee-machine, with a variety of options (including tea, for those who don’t like coffee), is a wonderful decision.

4. Family Events
Employees like to take their families to work-related events. It’s a great way for them to build new relationships, and just have a good time outside of the traditional workplace

5. Company-wide Competitions
Competition is the mother of productivity. If you can come up with a great competition, with a great reward, you just might find that your employees really get into it.

6. Child Care Facilities
Sometimes things happen, and employees will need to bring their children to work. If you don’t have anything that could be used as a childcare facility, you risk unhappy employees who will be forced to jump through hoops in order to take care of their kids in difficult situations.

7. Nice Office Supplies
Employees need supplies to do their work. So having nice post-its, pens, and paper readily available is a must if you’re going to be keeping your employees smiling and working.

8. Parties
Some of the happiest employees are those who are celebrating a coworker’s birthday and eating some cake.
Get everyone in the workplace’s birthdays written down, then you might just see happier employees. The gesture will look great on you as a boss, and it will keep employees being social and happy.

9. Friendly IT personnel
There’s nothing more angering and frustrating then coming into work, only to find that your computer is malfunctioning which prevents you from doing your work. Having a friendly, well-staffed, IT department can do wonders for employee happiness.

10. Delicious Food
If the food is delicious and healthy, then employees will be much more well fed and therefore happier.

11. Decorations and Windows
There’s nothing more depressing than a dark office with very little windows and seemingly endless rows of cubicles.
Adding color to the workspace, paintings, and making sure that it is well lit with ample windows can do wonders in terms of employee morale.

12. Be Open to Suggestions
Being open to suggestions is one of the simplest and most-effective ways to keep employees happy. If employees feel that their opinion is valued, and if they see some of their suggestions implemented, then they will be much happier. The improvements could also turn out to be really great for your business.



Does your company do the above to keep you happy?
Mine doesnt and I dont think it'll change in the next 5 years unless there's a majoyr change of management.
But I know One company does and it's Google!

I just came back from a 2 days seminar organised by our corproate bank and Google happens to be the client of the same bank as mine.
It was a very engaging session since Google shared on the company implementation of the corporate card programme and the "focus on employee" global policy.
After Google's presentation, we were so impressed and wished that we can work in Google too!

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