4 Ways To Create a Happier Workplace for Your Team

In these trying times, it can be tricky to maintain team morale and keep people’s spirits up, which is why a manager’s role is more critical than ever.

Remote working adds another layer of complexity, so use online systems and apps to bring the team together for regular meetings. Also, recommend that your colleagues stick to a daily routine. Going for a walk before work and adhering to the same distance as the typical journey to work provides the separation between the workday and leisure time.

Take breaks from work at the usual times and finish the day simultaneously and with another walk.

The routine mirroring the ordinary workday will make adjusting when the team returns to work easy. As a manager, you’ll need to do some team-building exercises to restore cohesion and productivity to the levels before the requirement for all workers to work from home.

Therefore, consider some options to make your workplace buzz with its typical energy and ambience.

Embrace Team Building Activities

Team-building is an essential tool for managers to leverage to improve collaboration and catalyze bonding between people who work closely with one another.

You might not realise that it can also be a great way to blow off steam and ease tension in the office, especially if you choose fun team-building activities. This is particularly relevant given the ongoing pandemic sweeping the globe.

Enforced lockdowns in many nations mean that teams cannot meet in person and are forced to communicate and work remotely.
When measures to stop the spread of coronavirus are eased and people return to the workplace, team-building activities like these will be more critical than ever.

The weeks or months of separation from colleagues will mean that bridges must be rebuilt between members. These activities will also ease people back into the daily work routine rather than throwing them in at the deep end.

Show Appreciation

In the hustle and bustle of the workplace, it can be easy to get caught up in handling your responsibilities and thus overlook the need to ensure that your team’s people receive the recognition they deserve for all their efforts.

Face-to-face praise is an effective motivator and mood booster, but you can also provide recognition via email or in other settings, such as meetings. Whichever approach you take, make sure that you regularly demonstrate how much you appreciate what employees are doing to contribute to the company. It will even stop skilled members from leaving for greener pastures since studies show that a lack of appreciation is often the cause of job disgruntlement.

Allow Flexibility

Striking the right balance between professional and personal responsibilities is crucial to keeping team members happy. If people know they can find fulfilment in both parts of their lives, they will be more content overall.

Many businesses have adopted the idea of flexible working to ensure that people can fit their jobs around their lives, which has proven particularly impactful after the coronavirus crisis.

Once things return to normal, this will undoubtedly play an even more significant part in determining team satisfaction levels.

Trust Your Team

It may seem obvious, but the more you show that you believe in the abilities of your team members, the more likely they will live up to their potential and prove what great things they can achieve. In turn, this will mean they are happier and more engaged with their jobs, rather than under constant scrutiny or being overburdened with pressure to do exactly what you tell them.

To achieve this, the temptation to micromanage must be resisted. You can offer as much support and encouragement to employees as you like. You must also know when to step back and give them room to spread their wings. Trust has been proven to be influential on how happy team members are in their current roles, making this a priority for managers to foster.