4 Ways to Achieving Friendly Workplaces

An employee-friendly workplace is one that places a priority on making employees happy at work. A workforce with a high level of job satisfaction can affect productivity, customer satisfaction, and overall profitability. What can you do to make sure your company is employee-friendly? In today’s post, we will look at four ways to achieve this.

Good Benefits Go Beyond Insurance

Insurance has become the main benefit option companies provide to their employees, but it need not be the only benefit. Benefits can include a company discount, incentive programs, discounts to local attractions, on-site recreation activities and more. Many of these things can be low cost or no cost.

Wellness programs are another excellent benefits. A wellness program can include discounted gym membership, walking groups, lunchtime yoga classes and a variety of health and fitness related activities. Wellness programs have the added benefit of creating a healthier workforce, and a healthier workforce means fewer sick days.

Get To Know Your Employees

Remembering an employee’s name and details about their life shows that you see that person as more than just a warm body filling a job. It is a way to value the individuals that make up your company.

Remembering names is one of my weaknesses. I can remember details about the people I meet, but for some reason names do not stick in my brain. For people in upper management and HR, we often interact with a lot of employees—not just the handful of people who report directly to us. The last company I worked at was a grocery chain with over 500 employees, which is a lot of names to remember!

I was lucky that employees at the stores wore nametags because it made it easy to remember people’s names. And because I knew learning names was a weakness for me, I would often make notes when I met people and mentally quiz myself before checking someone’s nametag. So, even if remembering names is a weakness for you, make it a priority to change it into a strength

Stand By Your Open Door Policy

Many companies have open-door policies in their employee handbooks, but how many really abide by this policy? If an employee asks for some time to discuss an issue, do you brush them aside and tell them to come back later? It is not necessary to drop everything to talk to the employee right away. If you are too busy, schedule a time to talk to the employee—preferably by the next day. Scheduling the meeting quickly sends the message to the employee that they are your top priority.

Better yet, schedule time to have one-on-one meetings with your employees on a regular basis. This can be a simple 15-minute check-in each week to go over what the employee is working on and any questions they have. When meeting with the employee, silence your phone, put your cell phone away and do not look at your computer screen.

Praise Your Employees

When you are meeting with your employees, do not forget to praise them. I have worked with managers who get too focused on what their employees need to fix and improve on, and they forget to tell them what they are doing well.

Praise can be as simple as telling someone good job. It can also be recognizing someone at a staff meeting or acknowledging their hard work in front of upper management. Having $10 coffee cards or other gift cards on hand can be a good way to reward an employee for a job well done. Celebrate milestones like birthdays and work anniversaries, and occasionally bring in lunch for your whole staff just to say thanks.

In the End…

The key to an employee-friendly workplace is put employees first. Think about what makes you happy and satisfied in your job, and remember to include that in your approach to managing employees. Doing so will have a positive effect on the success of your business and the happiness of the people working for you.