Tips for creating a Happy Workplace & Boosting Employee Engagement

The happier your employees are, the greater the chances for a more successful workforce and ultimately company. Keeping your employees happy can go a long way in boosting engagement and success in the workplace. Lack of cohesion, uneasiness, distrust and organisational turmoil can impede meaningful engagements in the office and this can slow down work. By paying more attention to the employees, you can improve enthusiasm and commitment.

Here are some tips that will help you create a better workplace for your employees.

Maintain an open line of communication

Adopting an open line of communication will allow they employees to feel safe and open even when taking to the company HR. This allows them to talk freely about any issues they encounter in the workplace.  This way, solving any issues and answering questions will be easier for you. you should be open to all kind of feedback; listen to every single employee and consider how you can use that feedback to change the workplace.

Change up the work environment – ritualize a good work environment

The environment itself plays a major role when it comes to employee well being and productivity.

• Personalise the workplace

No one should feel disconnected from their place of work. Encourage your employees to personalise their space by placing familiar objects on their desks. Family pictures and small plants can go a long way in making an office more personalised for an individual. Pencil and document holders are some of the resources you can offer to your employees to keep their work organised and therefore increase productivity and workflow.

• Make the work environment more appealing and inviting

If you can, make major changes to improve the lighting in the workplace to make it more comfortable and fresher.  Exposure to natural light can improve the mood and energy level of any room. If its not possible to change window fixtures or curtains for more light, consider a more natural artificial light to bright up the room.

 The other thing you could do is Keep the work environment very clean. Reducing the amount of clutter on an employee’s desk can help boos productivity in the workplace. A messy work environment will make it harder to find documents when you need them and can keep an employee from getting a task done on time.  Finally, keep the work environment more sterile, keep a well-balanced temperature and ensure they have access to water and a break during workhours.

Provide training, coaching and motivation

Training and caching will create a culture that fosters employee engagement as well as a continuous development. Thus, can help the employees build skills they need to do the job better.  To the employees, this shows that the company/organisation does value them and believes they have potential.

Investing in your employees is also a good way to invest in the future of the company as well as theirs. This will bring major engagement in your workforce.  The first thing you need to do is create a training budget for meaningful training/coaching and development program. One key focus should be cross training to help your employees learn how to perform in the workplace.

Coaching is also very important for engagement. Checking your employees’ short-term goals will help them analyse their skills and know what to improve. Get your HR team to maximize coaching effectiveness by giving your employees one on one counselling sessions.

Finally, a little motivation can go a long way with your employees. Everyone would love to take advice from an expert in their field. Line up some good speakers to address your employees and interns. Ask them to talk to your employees on topics asking with their area of expertise, and share knowledge and wisdom to encourage them. This can go a long way in inspiring and boosting productivity in the office.

Group activities

Host team building events will go a long way in cultivating happiness and fulfilment in the workplace. Teambuilding events are very meaningful and will inspire people to work together, foster creativity and enjoy the jobs they do at their places of work.

Focus on individuals also

One challenge that faces multiple workforces is finding the right approach in a multi-ethnic, multinational and multigenerational workforce. You should consider that everyone approaches work problems differently.

You can focus on individual tendencies and due that to match the workers with tasks they feel they can perform at their level best. This will also help you hire people who are more suited from particular jobs in the future.  You can perform a personality assessment to find out what each of your employee wants.

An engaged employee doing meaningful work will have an understanding of the type of role they play in the company. Creating strategic objectives and individual purposes will give each employee a sense of pride in the work they do.

Safety should be a number 1 priority

When you put safety first, the employees tend to feel more at ease in the workplace. An average of 17% of all disabling injuries in the workplace are caused by slipping. You should put the physical safety of the employees first to ensure they are comfortable working there. Ensure no employee is in harm’s way during their time in the office. Your employees should not be harmed, or mistreated by any co-worker, manager or even clients.

Socialize the workplace

Plenty of research proves that engages employees will feel more emotionally invested in the work they do. Socializing Is a great way for your employees to have more to care about and create closer connections to their workmates.

 Teams are very important for the workplace and healthy personal relationships is a key to that. Something as simple as approaching employees in the right way will make them feel more valued and appreciated. An employee who enjoys going to the workplace will put more effort and time into what they do.

Final words

Service projects will help your employees cultivate a closer relationship as co-workers. These types of projects are important because they fulfil all needs among your employees therefore creating a purpose.

As a leader, you should pay attention to your employees and what they need/have to say to make a conducive environment for success. Bringing more performance conversations and surveys to the workplace can go a long way in addressing real problems and making it a more convenient environment for work.