There are many ways that you can improve your sales and increase your profit margin. You can hire great people, reduce your overhead, outsource when needed, etc. Chief among all of these tricks and tips, though, is making sure that employee morale at your company stays high. Studies have proven over and over again that happy employees are more productive employees. Here are some techniques that you can use to boost morale:
Food and Beverages
It sounds like a silly idea, but feeding your employees and having beverages readily available both keeps your employees happy and improves their productivity (productivity that is lost when they have to leave the building to refill their coffee or get another soda). The easiest way to do this is to outsource the provisions to another company. This doesn’t have to mean having expensive catered meals every day! Hiring a company to keep your kitchen stocked and functional can just as easily be done by a food services company. For example, Aramark Refreshments provides coffee, snacks, and more to companies of all sizes.
PRO TIP: Make sure you have healthy food and beverage options like fruit, veggies, bottled water, etc in addition to the more traditional cookies, chips, soda, etc.
Allow Telecommuting
Companies that allow their employees to work from home at least part of the time don’t just have happier employees, they have more productive employees. Allowing telecommuting reduces the amount of time people have to take off from work when they are ill or need to look after their children. It is also helpful for the introverted who might be easily distracted or worn down by an otherwise social office environment. And, thanks to tools like Slack, Skype, etc. collaborating while telecommuting is easier than ever.
Provide Benefits
Offer your employees full benefits packages. This means offering dental and vision coverage in addition to a good health plan. Other benefits can include access to company vehicles during work hours (reducing their financial burden for gas), providing daycare to working parents, and unlimited sick and vacation hours. That might sound counterintuitive, but research shows that people who don’t have to worry about “using up” their sick and vacation leave are more responsible, productive and take less sick and vacation time on average than those who have a “use it or lose it” policy.
Reward Often
While it is true that there are competitive people out there who respond well to healthy in-office rivalries and negative feedback, most people are more inclined to thrive when they are praised and rewarded for their hard work and effort. We all love getting gold stars, right? Make sure that you tell your people how great they are and compliment them on the projects that are going well. Provide small rewards and thank-you gifts after stressful projects are completed to show your appreciation. Even a simple thank you card with a short note goes a long way toward keeping a team’s spirits up.
Social Time Outside of Work
Encourage your employees to spend time together outside of work hours. Being able to spend time together in a casual environment can foster bonding and improve communication between team members. Sponsor a regular happy hour at a nearby pub. Take everybody out to lunch. Throw holiday parties off site. Sponsor a weekend getaway. There are lots of big and small budget ideas that can help get employees together even when they aren’t working.
There are a lot of great methods you can use to keep your company morale high and, by extension, lift productivity rates. These are just a few of them. What are some of the methods that have worked well in your company?
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