Is Your Workplace a Happy One?

From nap pods to haircuts, Google is famous for the perks it offers its employees. Businesses in the know provide incentives that are non financial to attract and retain the right talent.

Perks are also designed to boost morale, enhance creativity and make everyone at work happy – and according to the statistics, the Tech giant is the benchmark as they go far and beyond what most of us do and provide for our staff.

There’s always room for improvement and it’s a win-win outcome with employee benefits proven to increase productivity so that should also improve your bottom line.

Here are some easy ways to strike the balance and create the optimal working environment on a small budget.

Be Flexible

Technology innovation and disruption and remote collaboration tools such as Slack and Trello, offers businesses, regardless of size or industry to move their systems from office to cloud.

Your workers can bring their own devices (BYOD) to your work environment and also work from home. By trusting employees to work from home, you’re empowering them to do their best work without micro management.

However for those of us who prefer more hands on management; tools like Slack provide it. There’s the cost savings too for you business; you’ll require less office space and can set up hot-desks, where your workers share desks and with flex-time one desk could be shared by two or more workers.

The nine-to-five work day will soon be a thing of the past so embrace flex-time work hours and imagine the operating costs savings!

Tailor-Made Training

Rather than generic ‘one size fits all’ approach to worker training, be more targeted and set up training programmes that show your workers you’ve thought long and hard about their development. Provide access to further industry-based qualifications pertinent to their career path.

Investing in their future, is investing in the business. Their skills base determines what your business can sell now and in the future.

Get Creative

Encouraging creativity in your staff is essential. This can be anything from holding brainstorming sessions to team quizzes. A quick meeting to throw around ideas needn’t take up much time, but it shows you value their input and their ideas which may change the direction of the company or secure the next big client.

Pay Up

Paying staff on time is an easy way to boost morale. Having a reliable payroll system in place means you can consistently pay on time, and this means you are showing employees that you value the work they do.

Work Hard, Play Hard

Work is serious business but keeping things fun can be beneficial for your company. This can be small perks like adding a TV to the break room or installing a vending machine. If you have a larger budget, you could invest in regular fruit deliveries or monthly lunches.

While an air hockey table might not be the right fit for your business, you could set up a social calendar so there are summer parties, Christmas events and regular post-work events. This is a fun way for everyone to catch up away from the office.

What have you got planned to make your workplace happy? Have you introduced anything unusual to keep everyone motivated?