No matter how organised and determined you are, you can’t run your business entirely by yourself – at least not once it begins to grow and becomes more popular with customers. Hiring a team of employees to help you run your company’s daily operations is vital if you’re going to continue to expand your company and avoid becoming too overwhelmed, but if you want your staff to be happy and remain loyal to your company, you need to give them a reason to do so. Never take your employees for granted, and make sure that they know they are appreciated to avoid high turnovers of staff and potentially getting a bad reputation as an employer. Below are a few simple and effective tips to help you make sure your employees are happy working with your company.
Are There Opportunities for Career Progression?
While you can’t create job roles out of thin air, you should still be thinking about what kind of career progression opportunities you can offer employees within your company. Not all of them will necessarily be interested, but it is important to be able to provide this as no one wants to spend years working in a dead-end job. As your business grows, there will likely be more progression opportunities for your staff, but think about what you can offer them in terms of more immediate goals and skills development, or even whether or not you will be able to offer them a pay rise depending on their performance in a year or two. You should also make sure that you or your team managers are having regular appraisals with employees to help them stay on track and give them the right support.
Quality Staff Training
It is your responsibility as an employer to make sure that your staff gets the relevant training for their role. A supervisor might be able to handle some of the more basic training steps, but if you need your employees to learn more about a specific topic, how to use certain equipment, laws, or other more complex training programs, you will need to come up with a better-developed training scheme. Alternatively, if you do not have the time or experience to do this yourself, consider reaching out to HR consultants who can help you with your employee training schemes, such as The HR Dept.
Creating a Positive Working Environment
There will be times when tensions might run high in the office, particularly if it is a busy period that has everyone rushing off their feet. However, everyone deserves to feel safe and secure in their place of work, and there are ways you can make sure that that’s how it is within your company, for example, having clear policies when it comes to harassment or discrimination as outlined in your employee handbook, and making sure that these policies are enforced in the unfortunate event there is an incident of this nature.
Making sure that health and safety regulations are adhered to and that the office is kept clean at all times is another important step, as is making sure that the security measures are of a great standard too. You should also make sure that the office furniture is comfortable and can support your staff, let in fresh air when possible and make an effort to turn the breakroom into a nice area to sit and enjoy lunches or a cup of coffee.
Ask Employees for Feedback
Another way you can make sure that your employees feel heard and valued is by asking them for their feedback on you as an employer or whether they think that there could be changes to operations to improve efficiency. You can give them the option to fill out surveys anonymously if that would make them more comfortable, but allowing your staff to speak about their concerns and what they would like to see from your company is a great way to work with them to find a happy balance.
Other Perks
Finally, consider other perks you can offer your employees as a token of your appreciation for their dedication and hard work. For example, organising a fun staff day out to a theme park, the theatre, or some other fun recreational activities. Buying them breakfast on Fridays or taking them out for after-work drinks once a month could also be a nice gesture, as can giving out gift vouchers as prizes for those who exceed their targets each month.
If you want to keep your employees happy at your company, you need to make sure that they are taken care of and supported correctly. Use these tips to help you achieve that and create a great place to work.