Ensuring positive mental health and a safe and happy work environment for your team is not only beneficial to your business as a whole, but it’s the right, ethical thing to do. It may feel like a minefield today, making sure that everyone is happy and satisfied with their job, but that doesn’t make you any less responsible for making sure your team is cared for. To help you to find ways to boost morale and the dedication of your team, we’ve put together a wellness guide to discuss everything from training opportunities to morale-boosting exercises and incentives. Use any combination of these ideas to see an increase in the way your team feels about your business and watch their loyalty and dedication to their careers skyrocket.
Wellbeing Strategy
Crafting a well thought out strategy for wellbeing amongst your team is no easy task. There is no perfect strategy for every single member of your team but there are ways in which you can diversify the options available to everyone. Things like fitness classes, mental health counseling, mental wellness classes and improved break time experiences such as new and relaxing chill out spaces, are great ways to help to bolster morale and keep people feeling happy and healthy. Remember, a healthy team is a happy team, and a happy team makes for more efficiency and success. Not only does this improve the way in which your team works, it will also ensure more retention of staff as people will be less likely to search for other jobs due to dissatisfaction with their workplace.
Incentives For Staff
Whether you provide your staff with company outings, office parties, or discount opportunities, you’ll want to find some way to incentivise your team to provide the best quality work they can. It’s common amongst business owners to scoff at these ideas, suggesting that paying them is enough incentive, but with such a competitive jobs market, you’ll want your business to stand out from the rest. If one of your talented team members is unhappy, it won’t take them long to search elsewhere for a better opportunity. Quality incentives, especially things like bonuses and rewards are a great way to keep those team members loyal and stop them from searching elsewhere.
Promote Positive Initiatives
Another way to get your team on board with the way you do things is to show that, as a business, you care about others outside of the industry. This can be done by conducting charity events and sponsoring particular groups. Give your team a say in who you support as well and encourage them to spend time helping out with these events too, such as giving incentives for their voluntary assistance. This could be in the form of extra holidays or things like gift hampers and gift cards. Showing that you aren’t just a corporate machine can encourage your team to believe in your business and ultimately have more dedication to their work.
Reskilling And Internal Mobility
Stagnation is a constant fear for many in their careers. The concern that they might stop progressing and end up in the same role for the rest of their working lives is terrifying to some. Offering more internal recruitment and reskilling to your current team with a talent mobility solution, like that from Randstad Risesmart, is a great way to ensure your employees are constantly trying to improve themselves and deliver the best work they can.
While this increase in productivity and determination is solely to impress and benefit themselves—which, let’s face it, you can’t blame them—it also benefits your business in the end. Hiring internally means that you also already have a good idea as to how those current team members work, and you’ll have a better understanding of how well they’ll fit in a different department. Hiring anyone new is always a slight risk as you don’t know if they’ll fit in with your current team or not.
Offer Treats For Staff
When it comes to your staff and their happiness, there are ways in which you can enhance that in the workplace. Not only are there quality incentives you can give for good work, but you can also provide your team with regular treats in the form of free snacks and drinks, and gifts throughout their time in the office. This doesn’t have to be in response to any particular event or positive, successful period, it can just be a treat for the sake of keeping spirits high. Why not treat everyone to a free lunch every Friday, to help spur people on in the run up to the weekend breaks? There are many opportunities to bolster morale, and this is a great choice for you.
Flexible Working Opportunities
Allowing your team to choose when they work has become a popular choice today. Not only is this a great offer for parents and other people with responsibilities outside of work, who may want to start work earlier and leave earlier to handle those responsibilities, but it also benefits people who may work better in the morning or evenings.
Whatever people choose, offering them the chance of a flexible work timetable can offer a great boost to their mental wellness. You may find that many people prefer to stick to the 9 to 5 schedule, and you can also offer longer workdays, with the benefit of an early finish on a Friday, or even a longer weekend, giving them the entire Friday off if they’ve made up the hours elsewhere in the week.
Remote Working Where Possible
Just like flexible working opportunities, allowing your team to work wherever they are comfortable with can really bolster efficiency, especially for those that prefer to work alone at home. With the continued advancements in technology, meetings can be held all across the world at the click of a button, reducing the need for people to be physically present. Not only that, but remote working expands your talent pool considerably. You may find that you can’t attract enough suitable candidates to specialist roles due to longer commute distances.
However, if you say that the role is remote, even if there is a need for occasionally commutes for essential meetings and such, you’ll find that your reach will increase massively. Of course, it’s important to consider the challenges as well as the benefits of remote working, just as you would with anything. But many businesses are becoming almost entirely digital now, and with the constant improvements to networking and the online world, you’ll find that this is only going to get easier and ultimately cheaper, as you may not need to pay for an office space anymore.
Recognise Good Quality Work
Providing your team with authentic recognition of their good work is very important and shows that you are genuinely invested and grateful for their time and effort. There are lots of people who thrive off of going above and beyond for their role, but this doesn’t mean you should take them for granted. Some people just enjoy a pat on the back every now and again for their good work. Combine this with open recognition and rewards and you’ll find that they’ll continue to try to impress, as well as encourage others to do the same too. Again, just because you’re paying someone a salary, it doesn’t mean they will give you their 100% effort at all times. Encourage them and show that it’s worthwhile for them to keep giving their best.