Keeping your Employees Happy

How to Improve Staff Retention and Productivity

Jul 31, 2007 Warren Singer

How to keep your employees happy, improving their motivation at work and enhancing the likelihood that they will stay longer with your company.

The employees in your company are your most valuable assets. They keep the company running, help generate revenue, keep your customers satisfied and not only contain the intellectual property of the company, but also hold the keys to your future success.

Some of the leading Fortune 500 companies understand the importance of investing in their employees. The principles of keeping someone happy in their job are simple. The following suggestions may help to make your employees happier in their jobs and keep them on longer.

Showing Respect

Respect is reflected in many different ways. It is displayed through how you talk to your workers and treat them, how you pay them and how you invest in them. The need to feel respected is a basic human trait that has to be fully understood by anyone who manages other people.

Providing Opportunities for Promotion

If employees see that their career is providing exciting and stimulating opportunities, they will definitely not want to give this up so easily.

Provide a relatively clear path for growth and promotion (either vertical or lateral) within a company. When an employee sees that their career at a company is at a dead-end, they will rapidly find an opportunity to leave.

Paying Adequately

When tightening the bottom line, many companies start first with worker salaries. When this happens, employees feel their time is not being properly valued and that they can achieve better compensation somewhere else. Pay your employees at our just above market rates. Use bonus insensitive and stock options for employees that show long-term loyalty towards the company or are highly productive.

Providing Opportunities for Responsibility and Creativity

The primary factor in satisfaction for many employees is the feeling that they are valuable contributors to the running of a company and that they have an important role to play, in their area of expertise. When employee have the opportunity to take responsibility for projects and use their own initiative, they not only enjoy their work more, but are far more productive and efficient.

Knowing Your Employees

It is surprising the number of senior executives and CEOs who do not have a clue who their employees are and do not take the time to meet them or get to know them. The same can be applied to middle-level managers.

Offering Positive Feedback

Employees like to hear about what they are doing well or right in the company. They also appreciate receiving feedback on what they are doing less productively, but only if this feedback is presented in a positive and friendly manner, and is not threatening or criticizing. Providing feedback means focusing on problems and work processes, and thinking of how to improve them. It also indicates that you care about what your employees are doing and take an active interest in their jobs.

Offering Long-term Security

Often employees will jump the bandwagon if they feel a company has no real long-term future - or they personally have no long-term future with the company.

Investing in Your Employees

The quickest way to your employee's heart is to show you care by investing in their professional development and health. Some companies pay for continued professional education, in return for a commitment to the company.

Conclusion

The best run and most successful companies know that their employees are the heart of the business. They realise that providing the right atmosphere and conditions will help both their employees and their business to flourish.

Your employees are like plants that flourish when they have the right environment. If you cannot provide this, can you blame them for seeking greener pastures?

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