How to keep your employees happy and stop them from leaving

Booming startups and their need to attract the best talent have strengthened the perception of money not being the sole source of employee satisfaction. Rather, it’s the little things the company does which add value to it!
Companies are increasingly becoming people-centric and the adoption of employee platforms is on the rise. Only some minor adjustments can easily achieve the happiness of a company. It is always beneficial for the founder to define the organisation’s work culture pre-emptively so that they don’t have to face future tussles within the system.
Get your employees to have a little fun
Employees always need to unwind after a long day at work. Even during office hours it can become quite monotonous for anyone to sit working on their desk the entire day.
Socialisation is an absolute key to finding happiness. Compose your office in such a way that people have a chance to interact with each other. Personal happiness implies an idea of welfare as a whole – which means taking care of your staff not only as some soldier ant but as a human being. Here are some examples of how your start-up can effectively achieve personal well-being:
- Have photos of your team on a wall, or frame them around the office. Group photos, funny photos, events photos or random photos snapped when people weren’t watching. It’s a cultural element that can encourage and foster work relationships and employee engagement.
Try some unusual employee engagement ideas. Automobile marketplace Droom recently organised a 90-minute cake fight for employees as ‘break-out’ time. Nothing can break ice better.
Listen to them
Show them you care
To stick to your company employees should want to work at your office too. They need to witness that there is potential for them to grow holistically in your company and for this you need to focus on their work-place well-being as well.
- Reward them – Encourage your employees to achieve their goals and reward them when do so. This will motivate them to work harder and reap benefits.
- Give them tickets for their favourite actor’s movie or tickets to a match they are excited about.
- Give them a vacation and tickets to visit their hometown. Your employee would surely see how much you care.
- Even a small amount of bonus during holidays and festivals would go a long way to make the happy.
Philips India recently introduced extended maternity leave, higher adoption leave and even sabbaticals of six months and one year, depending on the number of years of service.
- Use newsletters to highlight employees who have performed well
Have faith
Among the three points, this one is a bit if a challenge in terms of application in practical life. Not everyone can understand everyone’s mental state easily. But with a little bit of effort, you can implement it effectively. Once you hire people for your company, you need to have faith in them. Show confidence in them, ease off their nervousness and let them work freely. Don’t overestimate the cost of small failures.
- Ask them questions – Ask your employees how they are, or how they are doing and listen actually. A good listener can be the greatest friend. Let them express their concerns which will eventually make them feel better.
- Give them breaks – Give your employees strategic breaks during work hours. Even taking a 10 minute break from monotonous work can lift boredom and increase productivity.
- Assign a buddy/mentor for every newcomer
- Don’t be judgmental – And last but not the least, don’t be judgmental. Don’t judge your employees by their deeds quickly. Read them carefully, stretch a hand for help and make them stand on their foot when they are low. Learn to give second chances and make them know they did not disappoint you
It does not take a lot of time
Now that we have stressed so much on how to keep your employees happy, we also know that taking out time to manage a growing team when you don’t have dedicated people for that can be a task in itself. Here is a list of tools/guides to get you quickly started on it.
- https://www.knowyourcompany.com/ – Made by the people behind 37Signals, this tool would automate the process of getting feedback from your team, introducing new members and keep everyone updated about others.
- https://www.officevibe.com/ – A tool that takes 5 minutes to setup and provides the simplest way to measure employee satisfaction and gives you actionable tips to enjoy a better workplace.
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Take a look at these handy guides that have some amazing tips and tricks to use in your workplace.
- When I Work compiled a list of epic team building games that you can start using from day zero. Take a look at this list here – http://wheniwork.com/blog/team-building-games/