The most successful companies and ones people long to work for often have a wide variety of ways keeping their staff happy and often it is anything but dealing with compensation. There are plenty of different benefits a company can provide besides wages increase to keep employees engaged, satisfied and productive.
1. Flexible Hours – Each company is different, and some are much easier to allow flexible scheduling than others but allowing employees to have flexibility is a simple way and shouldn’t cost much to keep them happy. An example would be allowing employees to come in the morning anytime from 7 to 9 and leaving 3 to 6, of course ensuring performance levels remain the same, this allows for employees who are parents, or need to take appointments or handle home tasks the time to do so.
2. Casual Fridays and Other Themes – Businesses have a wide variety of different dress codes with some being strict, and business formal, while others lean towards business casual. If your organisation falls under business formal, consider allowing employees specific days of the week to “dress down,” as a way to keep them happy, relaxed and motivated.
3. Coffee and Tea Breaks – This tends to be a perk that most companies always have, but if you already have free coffee and tea available consider improving the quality you offer. Giving employees a high quality coffee-machine, with a variety of options is a wonderful decision. In terms of cost, it won’t be as much as raising wages, but it will certainly help motivate some employees to keep working away. Including small snacks and fruit with this is also a great benefit.
4. Exercise Programs – Exercise is a proven mood booster and stress reducer, so get your team moving. Offer discounted or free gym memberships, start a company organized team club or offer incentives to employees who pledge to quit smoking, etc.
5. Community Involvement – By offering and allowing your employees one or more days off (with pay) every quarter to volunteer at a local charity with fellow co-workers, you not only increase a sense of team-building, but you are also creating a better company image.
6. Family Events – Employees like to take their families to work-related events because it is great way for them to build new relationships, share what they do at work with their family, and just have a good time outside of the traditional workplace. Companies can also use this time to ensure the rest of the family is happy that the employees works for the company, and will encourage them with positive words about the company.
7. Parties – Celebrating employees’ birthdays with a small cake only takes requires a 15 minute break but allows co-workers to connect on a personal level and encourages teamwork. Christmas parities, the annual company party are all items that employees look forward to as a time to relax and bond with co-workers.
8. Office environment – Nothing is more depressing or demoralising than a dark office with few windows or seemingly endless rows of cubicles. Allowing employees to add colour to their workspace, paintings, or personal items can do wonders for employee morale and costs little for the employer to implement.
9. Be Open to Suggestions –Being open to suggestions is one of the simplest and most-effective ways to keep employees happy and allows employees to feel that their opinions are valued. Oftentimes, employees are able to come up with simple and relatively cheap improvements that can turn out to be really great for the organisation and also for the employees.
Businesses should always be concerned with how happy their employees are as a happy employee will work harder, be more positive and help create a more productive work environment. Raising wages is the quick and easy fix, and will solve the employee morale problem in the short run but if the company instead focuses on a variety of elements to help make employees happier they might find that employees are happier for longer, and employee turnover decreases.
To keep the juices flowing, the company has a “think tank” for the technical and creative employees. The think tank is a corner room with a terrific view, comfy chairs and a pingpong table where tournaments — heated at times — take place.