A happy employee can be described as someone who is quite alright at work and doesn’t complain too much. For years this was the only feedback that employers would retrieve from lengthy surveys, but was it enough to build a high-performance team? Not everyone would agree, and especially not those who had to rely on tangible results to create comprehensive business strategies.
Luckily, with technology advancements, we can understand better what comprises employee happiness and how to increase it. The newest technological advancements like enterprise feedback platforms by Questback Global, are already producing more insightful data that help us understand the very complexity of job satisfaction.
When interviewing for jobs, interview questions usually fall into two categories – those verifying your competency, or skills and natural strengths. With the latter being more commonplace, as it’s praised by the effectiveness in predicting not only if a person can do the job, but also if someone is likely to enjoy the role and has the necessary motivation. This approach goes by the name of strength-based recruitment and has been doing a great job of linking employees with employers and achieving just that.
Organisations are bragging about their unique cultures – if they get the right people, creating a unique culture seems to be a seamless process.
While employees’ natural talents are being pumped out to benefit organisations, it also feels right to ask about employee’s satisfaction. Do they really strive for what they are good at? Do they enjoy their work even more? Below we present 5 secrets that will help you to better understand your employees’ happiness and improve your engagement techniques.
1. Engage in dialogue with your employee
In every company, CEOs have the last word, but it doesn’t mean it has to be the only one. As the leader, you have plenty of opportunities to have your opinions heard, but this is less true for your employees. Get them talking, find out where their interests lie. By actively listening, you not only show that your relationship with your staff is far more than purely transactional, but you also collect crucial information for building an effective employee engagement strategy.
2. Allow for flexible work
To quote Nelson Mandela – “money won’t create success, the freedom to make it will”. Making your employees masters of their own time, can give them a rewarding sense of freedom, and potentially increase productivity. At every office, there always will be that one person who switches off the lights at the end of the day, but judging people by the time they spent at their desks is commonly associated with an old-fashioned approach. Don’t be old-fashioned, especially if you were brought to the business by cutting-edge technology.
3. Transparency is the way
Deep in our past, gossiping played a crucial role in building bonds between people and retaining knowledge that would be passed from a tribe to a tribe. Yet, if your staff must play Chinese whispers in order to stay abreast with the company’s news, it’s a sign that something is wrong. By making sure everyone is on the same page, you cut the unnecessary second-guessing and build a trust that everyone needs to believe in you as a leader.
4. Supply them with clear objectives
Even if we are all motivated and engaged, it is highly unlikely we all will be able to work to our fullest capacities every day. Doubts come and go, and most of us know how to grapple with them, but sometimes the lack of well-defined goals can make your employees unlikely to return from the land of doubt. Next thing you see, is their resignation letter on your desk. One of the approaches to increase your employees’ satisfaction is to give them enough reasons to believe, that their job is important, and the time they spend at work has a value, other than simply financial.
5. Cut down on the meetings
Too many meetings, meetings without structure, or meetings for meeting sake, are disruptive to the organic flow of work and can bog down the workday. While it might be easy for some to jump back into the task they have interrupted, for others, it can be impossible to recreate that flicker of inspiration they had an hour ago. Cutting down on unnecessary meetings, or perhaps making some of them voluntary could be something worth considering.