Looking after your staff involves more than just taking care of the practical elements such as pay, tax, facilities, and equipment. To have a happy workforce, you need to consider the mental wellbeing of your staff, and that means making a conscious effort to ensure the working environment gives them what they need in terms of stimulation, responsibility, enjoyment, and a pleasant atmosphere. It might sound like a lot of extra work that you could do without as a small business owner. However, investing in your staff is essential if you wish to succeed with your business.
Why caring for staff is so important
There are many reasons why your workforces’ emotional welfare is vital to your business. Firstly, unless your employees feel happy and fulfilled, they will not be performing at their best. That means reduced productivity, which will affect your profitability. They may function adequately to get the job done, but won’t have the enthusiasm to go the extra mile chasing up sales leads for example, or being proactive in their role. Consequently, you will be missing out on the added value a happy employee can bring to your business. If they are actively unhappy, then customer service standards will drop, and if customers aren’t receiving the highest standards of service, they will go elsewhere – and tell other people about their experience as well. You’ll also have problems with staff retention because if they are unhappy, your employees will be looking for other opportunities and won’t feel any loyalty to you. Rehiring and training new staff is a costly business, and better avoided by having staff who love working for you.
How to create a happy working environment
You need to be a good leader, and that isn’t necessarily something that will come naturally. You should work on your leadership skills so that your employees can trust you to be fair, approachable, and pleasant to work for. Take a course, or at least do plenty of reading and research into what makes a good leader, to improve your abilities in this area. Creating a sense of camaraderie amongst the workforce is important, building up team spirit and a supportive community. One way you can do this is to invite everyone to activities outside of work, where they can relax and have a good time. You can also introduce group bonding activities to the workplace, for instance with the World Cup taking place this summer, why not check out all the latest scores and information at https://www.unibet.co.uk/blog/football/world-cup, and have an office sweepstake set up to add some fun to the summer days. Communication is a vital tool for leaders, so you need to be approachable from the staff’s point of view, but also keep them informed about what is going on in the business. Keeping them in the loop is a crucial way of building trust and therefore loyalty, and you can also gain valuable insights and ideas from your staff.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to happy working environments. There’s plenty of information available online concerning ways to keep your staff happy, and it’s well worth it to you as a business owner to invest in the wellbeing of your staff.