4 Simple Ways You Can Keep Your Workplace Content

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Your business is only as productive as the ladies and gents grinding away in it. If they aren’t pulling their weight, then the entire company will suffer for it. If they’re thriving, then guess what will happen to your business! It would be great if there were other ways to make a company produce excellent output, but the staff and their motives are the only way. You have to work for what you want in this life, after all.

That said, it’s up to you to make sure they do their jobs properly with smiles on their faces. If they aren’t performing as you’d like, then that’s going to be down to your decisions and/or your leadership – the buck stops with the person at the very top. The staff are only human; they make mistakes. It’s your job to limit those, and make everybody work properly. How? Well, here are five ways you can keep everything ticking over nicely:

Break Any Monotony That Might Appear

When employees have to do the same thing over and over again, that can have a detrimental effect on their contentment. Sure, they might enjoy doing simple tasks for a while, and completing things might make them feel good, but there comes a time where it just gets too repetitive and depressing. If you think they might get a little bored of the work, then actively look to change things up a little. You really don’t want unmotivated people sluggishly ambling through your workplace.

Create A Lovely Recreational Area

During break times and lunchtimes, staff members need to get away from their work and chill out for a little while. These short intervals help you out as well as themselves. They, of course, come back more revitalized, ready to work, and just straight-up happier. You then benefit due to their new-found motivation and willingness to get things done. You can also invest in a tankless water heater if you want, so you can provide instant hot water. Check out this sizing calculator to find out more.

Keep The Place Stocked Up And The Equipment Functioning  

It’s frustrating when you can’t work due to malfunctions, right? Be sure to check on all of your equipment regularly so as to avoid anything stress or anger towards the work. You should also take stock of everything, too – you don’t want your staff getting frustrated after running out of items or materials. Whether it’s direct thermal labels or coffee granules in the kitchen area, make sure they’re present!

Make Sure Everything’s Running Well 

The facilities and utilities will need to work properly if you want your staff to be happy. Nobody likes the idea of not being able to use the restroom during the working day. The idea of central heating or air conditioning being on the fritz is something out of a horror movie, too. If things are looking a little strange in that respect, then you might want to bring in somebody that specializes in plumbing and heating. Even if things aren’t going terribly, you might still want to let them check through everything. You never know when it could go boom.

Making Employees Fall In Love With Their Office

Do you have a space at home which you use to get things done? A space where you go to write emails, type up reports for your business, make your future plans, organize your finances and more?

This sort of area should be somewhere you feel your mind can fit in. It should be a space where you enjoy sitting and working for long hours. Now, consider what kind of office you provide for your employees and what it must mean to them. What kind of impact do our surroundings have on us when we’re at work? It's without a doubt one of the most overlooked areas for any business owner.

Company culture is first reflected by the office. What you stand for, what kind of atmosphere you have and what kind of professional attitudes you want from your employees will be spoken without a single word just by your office. Not only does a great office improve morale and productivity, but it can supercharge employee creativity and even loyalty.

Don’t go crazy for neutrals

The aesthetics of the office should be pleasing to the eyes. It's important you don’t go crazy with neutrals. Far too many offices are colored in whites and greys. Although this may be good for a home, for an office you want a more varied color palette.

For example, you could have different departments in their own unique colors. The sales department could have red walls and red chairs, while the risk department could have royal blue walls and black chairs. Adding artwork to your walls is also helpful to employees. Nobody wants to stare at a plain wall all day long at their desk. Be creative and have fun decorating your office, make it feel unique so its own culture can arise and thrive. Adding plants to your office is not just for health reasons but they can also bring living color to your office. 

Being Tidy and Clean

Many office floors are carpeted. This can result in foul odors forming over time and this can lead to an unpleasant place to work. You should ask employees to be very careful with rubbish and how they treat their own personal workstations. It should go without saying but unfortunately, some employees have worse hygiene habits than others.

You could also call professional services such as Evergreen Janitorial Services, Inc. to keep your office spick and span. They offer services such as cleaning commercial office building floors. They can also clean marble, wood or tile so if you have expensive materials in your office, you should go with this kind of service that won’t damage them.

Allow personalization

Some businesses are strict with their office personalization policies. However, it's good to allow employees some kind of personalization of their own desk. Photos of friends and family members, their achievements, stuffed animals, badges, and small figures should be allowed onto their desks. Just remember to ask employees they keep their politics and religion to their own private lives.

The office aesthetic has such an impact on the psyche of employees. Their surroundings should not be bland with neutrals, but rather colorful and with touches of unique decorations and decor.

Keeping The Best: A Guide On Staff Retention

It is so often the case, that staff members are a business's most valuable asset. However, keeping the best ones over the long term can be a real challenge for companies, both large and small. After all, people's needs change, and there are always competitors that will try and poach the best workers away. Happily, there are some tactics you can use to keep hold of the very best employees.

Read on to find out what they are. 

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Don't say goodbye to your best employees! 

Work environment 

Above all else, what keeps people in their jobs for the long term is that they enjoy them. That they don't dread going into work each morning or watch the clock religiously until it gets to 5 pm each day. 

That means as an employer, you need to make the atmosphere in which your employees work as positive as possible. In fact, you can approach this situation in two ways. The first is to look at the physical environment in which you expect people to work. The idea being to ask yourself whether it's safe, clean, and aesthetically pleasing? These are the factors that can make the most difference in staff satisfaction.

Secondly, don't forget that the atmosphere of a workplace is more than just the physical environment but extends to the emotional situation as well. Therefore, someone feels left out, or there is a particular toxic member of staff, you must deal with this as soon as possible. In fact, doing so can not just help you retain the best staff over the long term, but also reduce any employee advance days due to stress as well.

Training 

Next, if you want to keep a hold of the best employees in your business over the long term, you must provide them with opportunities for training.

Now, you may think that as long as they are performing their work tasks adequately, training is an unnecessary expense and use of time. However, this is not the case. In fact, offering training to staff can help them be more invested in their work, and stay in their posts for longer, especially if it is leveled training that is related to official levels which can be displayed on their resume.

Happily, you don't have to dedicate a lot of person-power or in work time training to provide these benefits either. In fact, you can use automated lms software to manage training functions. Something that basically allows employees to work through the content at their own pace with very little interaction from your HR department. 

Wages 

They say that money makes the world go round, and it is true that many of us would not work if we didn't have bills to pay. Of course, what this demonstrates is the importance of remuneration for a job well done. In fact, being able to offer comparatively high wages is something that will also help you to keep the best employees working for your business. Often over the long term, this can be very beneficial for your company. 

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Happy Staff / Happy Business - How To Make This Your Mantra

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It’s easy to think that in order to run a successful business, you need to crack the whip and squeeze every last ounce of value out of your staff. In some respects, it’s important to stay firm. If someone is continually taking days off, making a mockery of your process or acting as dead weight, disciplinary and dismissal processes might be needed.

But it’s also essential to, as a baseline, ensure your staff are happy at your firm. If not, then standards slip. It can be easy to think that staff will just leave if they are unhappy, but in some job markets that’s not as easy as you think. Some might prefer to stay for the security and financial comfort of a job while stress harms their working productivity, or they simply decide to achieve the bare minimum. No, actualized people, those who care about your brand, those are the people you want to work at your firm.

But it’s your job to actualize them through their career. It doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and you can’t expect your staff to always bring their best selves if you don’t give them that conduit. So, let’s consider how you might achieve this with care and intention:

A Rational Work/Life Balance

Some careers are known for their heavy time investment during the working week. For example, you wouldn’t expect to only work 35 hours a week as a partnered lawyer. Yet does this mean you should completely revert your needs for a healthy work/life balance? We’re not so sure that would be healthy. If anything, a rational work/life balance is needed, in fact, it’s absolutely essential.

This is where you need to consider your work schedule. If we’re not being naive, most business leaders know that overtime, working through lunches or a range of other effort-laden requirements are needed, even when fully staffed. But it’s important to know what features your work schedule should include, so that you can disseminate that information to our staff well. It can take a little time to implement a schedule that works for you, your staff, and the repeated sustainable needs of your business. And yet this is what you must fine tune, over and over again, in order to get to the best result. We think you can achieve this, with the resources linked.

Training

Training your staff is essential. You cannot simply expect staff, even if experienced, to be aware of every single process you have to deal with. They might not understand your working module, you might not have taught them of practical procedures unique to your firm, or they might just be confused with a process and need a further explanation. Do not treat this as a waste of time.

The more you can engage the learning interest of your staff, the better. For example, let’s use a business everyone can understand to illustrate this point - a restaurant. Let us say you’re making new changes to the menu. Instead of simply telling your staff how to describe the menu and showing them what it looks like, have them taste each item. Get their thoughts. Ask them how they might describe it, and what wines those foods would pair with. This is the difference between an order and helping staff absorb the new direction, able to use this to inform their best work.

In an office setting, it can be the same way. For example, helping them become aware of the intimate details of a client’s brief rather than simply telling your staff to do something a certain way can inspire the best work, and help the entire team, even in a hierarchical structure, feel like more of a collaborative environment.

Confidentiality And Respect

It’s essential to treat everyone the same way. Treating staff with confidentiality and respect is essential. No matter if they have been accused of workplace bullying, stealing from your stock room, or simply failed to make a certain deadline. It’s important to give everyone their fair chance, and be as neutral as possible from your HR perspective as you can.

Sometimes, unless essential, having your HR staff inform you of only the lightest, anonymous and most needed details of caring for a certain employee can help them retain their dignity, especially through essential matters such as mental health issues etc. There is a way to conduct this work and keep an open door policy that will always help your team know you are there for them. This is important.

With this advice, we hope you can ensure a happy staff, and from then on a happy business.

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