How are you? How are you, really?
When is the last time you’ve asked somebody how they really are or been asked that yourself? Your employees might be walking around with a smile on their face, but do you know how they’re truly doing? Employee satisfaction should be a top priority of yours, as employee dissatisfaction can strongly affect productivity and spread like wildfire throughout workplaces. This can quickly demoralize an entire office. If you find this becoming an issue with one or more employees, act quickly to uncover the root of dissatisfaction, hopefully able to find a solution.
The mental health and well-being of your employees isn’t something to push to the backburner, so let’s focus on undoing any unhappiness in your employees! Besides lost productivity, unhappy employees can cost your company oodles of money. In one year, employees who came to work and weren’t fully productive cost employers around $1,500 billion.
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How can you help undo unhappiness in your employees?
Clear and consistent communication
Lack of communication can create an environment of distrust, confusion, and disengagement. Create an environment where free-flowing communication is normalized and encouraged. Multi-directional communication within teams will cause employees to feel more valued, more engaged, and more productive. Open lines of communication will allow you, as a leader, to hear what your employees need before issues grow into unmanageable problems. With effective communication, it will be easier to lay out clear goals and expectations within your team, creating alignment.
Empower your employees
The people on your team are there for a reason; they are capable of doing excellent work in their position. Guide them to be the best they can be without micromanaging every step of the way. Your employees will learn and grow much more if you take a step back and let them make decisions and complete tasks without constantly looking over their shoulder. Micromanagement can quickly cause employees to feel distressed, lowering motivation to grow in their skills. As a leader, it can be hard to hand control to other people, but you may need to do a little bit of that to empower your employees.
Recognize and reward employees
Everybody wants to feel like what they’re doing is important. They want to feel valuable. The people on your team are incredibly important to what you are trying to accomplish as a team and an organization; you know this. Let your employees know this too! Share with your employees how they are appreciated, show them that their hard work is recognized, and praise them for their good performance. You can recognize and reward your employees in many ways: verbally, hand-written notes, monetarily, extra PTO, etcetera. Positively reinforce your team whenever possible to ensure they stay engaged, determined, and happy at work.
You’re bound to deal with dissatisfaction in the workplace; in the meantime, do what you can to prevent and undo unhappiness with your employees. Put your people first, hearing what your employees need, empowering them, and rewarding accordingly. If you can do this well, you will see employee well-being and productivity increase while turnover decreases.
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Reach out today and let’s chat about how we can help you get to the root of your employees’ wants and needs!
