5 Ways to Make Your Employees Happy and Productive

Running any business is going to be hard with cranky and inefficient employees. If you want your business to succeed, you would want your employees to be as motivated and committed as you are. The key to making employees highly productive is to keep them happy and comfortable in their working environment. Unhappy employees are more likely to slack off, badmouth your company and quit at the first chance they get. You can avoid this disastrous situation by following the below advice on how to get the most out of your employees:

1. Make the Workplace Pleasant

A dingy and dirty office is not the best environment to concentrate on complex tasks. Therefore, you should invest some money in designing a spacious, attractive and clean working environment, so that your employees are happy to get up each morning and come to work. Make sure there’s plenty of sunlight coming in, and install blinds to control the light as desired. Each employee should have a workstation that ensures personal space.

2. Remove Distractions

Research shows that most employees miss deadlines because they are distracted at work. Distractions come in many forms. It could be loud construction noise at the office, a talkative colleague or a problem at home. If you have employees who miss deadlines often, you should take action to figure out why. If there are physical distractions like noises made from new phones, take the necessary steps to fix that. If it’s a personal problem, try to talk to the employee and advise him or her to get help and start concentrating on work again.

3. Appoint Project Leaders

Projects are teamwork, but if you want to get them done on time, there should be a team leader who is responsible for meeting the deadline. If you appoint a project team and let them figure out between each other what should get done when, nothing will ever get done. The team needs an authoritative figure to motivate members to get things done, and to take responsibility for the project.

4. Invest in Time Saving Software

Don’t let your employees be burdened with monotonous and onerous tasks that doesn’t require too much thinking but still takes up a lot of time. You should invest in time saving software and take steps to automate tasks that can be automated. Your employees should have plenty of time to work on tasks that require complex thinking.

5. Provide Tech Support

You should provide your employees with the right tech to get things done on time, such as computers equipped with fast operating systems, handy software, and office smartphones to get work done on the go, and perhaps tablet computers to work from home if necessary. Don’t end up giving your employees cheap cell phones or computers, and invest in good-quality and long lasting tech.

You should aim to keep employees happy with the work they are doing. You can reward them occasionally with a company getaway or a year-end bonus to let them know that you appreciate the work they are doing. Show them that working for you is mutually beneficial.