Why Employee Happiness Matters

No one wants to work in a sad, depressing, oppressive environment. That’s just a recipe for disaster and failure.

Employee happiness matters because team members who feel good while at work are:

• More engaged
• More productive
• More creative
• More likely to treat customers with respect
• Less likely to look elsewhere for fulfillment
• More inclined to give 100% at all times

It’s easy to see how training your employees to be happy at work can pay very real dividends to your business as a whole.

Ways to Increase Employee Happiness

1) Survey Your Team

One of the best and easiest ways to start your business on the path to better employee happiness is to ask your team members about it directly. And the best way to do that is to administer an employee satisfaction survey.

An employee satisfaction survey gives you insight into how your team feels about their day-to-day activities and other key aspects of your business. Think of it as the foundation of a happy team.

2) Give Them the Tools They Need to Do the Job Right

There are few things more frustrating — and a bigger hit to employee happiness — than not having the tools to do your job effectively and efficiently. So, make sure your team has the tools they need to do the job right.

3) Give Your Employees Autonomy

Employee happiness depends, in large part, on being free to try novel approaches to common problems. To encourage this freedom, give your employees plenty of room to work.

Giving your employees autonomy proves that you trust their abilities. That sense of trust then helps them feel happier while at work.

4) Recognize Work Well Done

Another powerful way to increase employee happiness is to recognize work well done whenever it occurs. It doesn’t have to be a grand, expensive gesture. Small rewards more frequently go a long way toward improving happiness, satisfaction, and engagement.

5) Promote Inclusivity

Another powerful way to improve employee happiness is to promote inclusivity. Workplace inclusivity ensures that everyone:

• Has equal access to the same resources and opportunities
• Is treated fairly and respectfully
• Can and wants to contribute fully to their success, the team’s success, and the business’s success

When you develop inclusivity by making everyone feel like a valuable member of the team, you lay the groundwork for their overall happiness to grow and improve as well.

6) Create Standard Operating Procedures

Guidelines and standard operating procedures are the foundation on which your team — and your business — operates. They also have a direct effect on employee happiness. Establish clear procedures and instructions for everything that has to do with your business.

7) Cultivate Open Communication

Communication is fundamental to employee happiness, as well as an effective team and business. It’s more than just an exchange of information; it’s how well the recipient understands what you’re trying to say.

8) Try an Alternative Work Schedule

To make the most of your employees’ peaks in performance, try instituting an alternative work schedule. Examples include flextime, compressed workweeks, 9/80 work schedules, and split shifts.

Use Sling to Increase Employee Happiness

While many apps make the scheduling process simpler, only a handful actually provide tools that help you improve employee happiness. Of those, Sling is the best.

Sling’s powerful A.I. allows you to maximize the potential of each shift so you can create the best team for the job while still giving your employees the time off they need. Sling provides suggestions and notifications when you accidentally double-book someone or forget to take into account a time-off request. This can help you maintain the happy vibes that you’ve worked so hard to achieve.

And Sling offers even more features to help you maximize workforce management, optimization, and employee happiness, such as:

• Built-in time-tracking features
• The ability to clock in from any mobile phone
• Geofencing to keep this feature accurate
• Labor-cost control
• Budgeting
• Overtime control
• Paid-time-off monitoring

All of that from one suite of tools. Sling really is the complete solution for scheduling, organizing, managing, and improving the way your team feels at work.

See for yourself what Sling has to offer, try it for free, and get even more free resources to help you manage your business better, organize and schedule your team, and track and calculate labor costs.