3 Easy Ways To Improve Employee Happiness & Productivity

Looking for ways to improve employee happiness has been a goal for many businesses, and with so many people across the UK employed in office based work, it is a worrying statistic that UK office workers reported a 30% increase in productivity when they worked from home.

It goes without saying that it is a challenge, and potentially a key to having a successful business, that staff are happy and productive in their place of work.

So it seems strange that some employers are seemingly unwilling to try and develop an office culture that promotes both employee happiness and productivity side-by-side, rather than having them as opposing forces.

Read more: How To Have A Productive Desk Setup

So at JFK Binding, we wanted to take a look at some of the most common things that might be hampering employee happiness and what can be done to correct them.

Happy Employees = More Productivity

One of the most important things an employer should do is make a conscious effort to listen to the feedback of those in their employ.

While it is common practice (and a valuable one at that) to provide feedback to employees, many employers fail to turn the tables and think about how their staff could add value to a business through their feedback. This can create frustration as it can leave people feeling under valued.

We suggest that you try and set up regular meetings – either one to ones or group gatherings – where people are encouraged to share their feedback and vent their frustrations.

It could be on anything from business processes to working culture or even something as simple as taking more of an effort to keep the office clean. Whatever you choose, the gesture can lead to staff feeling more valued, therefore more committed and productive.

Set clear career goals or objectives

Another recent study of office workers found that 48% didn’t feel that their employers understood their career goals.

This can be potentially hugely damaging to staff morale – people will be more motivated when they are given the opportunity to challenge their own skills and abilities. It can help give a sense of accomplishment that leads to higher work satisfaction.

Read more: 8 Bad Work Habits You Find In Every Office

We recommend that personal development plans (or PDPs) are used within a business to combat this.

If these are implemented in a well structured way, with either quarterly or bi-annual reviews to discuss progress, it can really leave staff with the clear feeling that their personal career goals and objectives are understood.

Offer training

Another way to reduce employee happiness and productivity as an employer is not to offer staff training. For many people an important motivational factor is that they have the opportunity to better themselves professionally – and for employers the benefit is that you develop a more efficient, committed and talented workforce.

There are a number of key reasons why offering employees training is valuable. Firstly, it’s about understanding.

Particularly when an employee works in a large organisation in a role with very specific daily tasks, they can begin to feel like little more than a cog in a machine. With the correct training, it can become clearer to an employee how their work fits into the a business goals and achievements.

Another key aspect of training is career development – the majority of people aren’t satisfied just having a job, they want to develop a career. As an employer, offering this through training can lead to improved retention and better performance.

And offering training doesn’t have to be a huge strain on resources either. Here at JFK Binding we sell a number of products like USB flash drives and memory cardsmemory cards that make it easy to manage and distribute your training resources internally.

What are you doing to make your employees happier?

We’d love to know what steps your business is taking to improve employee happiness and productivity. Let us know on Facebook or Twitter and remember to visit our shop for all the binding supplies you’ll need.