Creating a happy work culture

In this candidate-driven market, where employment is at record highs, building and maintaining a happy workplace is important. Employees who feel happy and fulfilled at work are more likely to stay with your company, are more productive and collaborate better with others. A positive workplace culture will help you attract the best candidates, recruit more easily, reduce workplace stress and outperform your competition.

As recruiters with many years experience we have seen countless workplaces, good and bad. Here are a few suggestions from Lucy on how to create a happy, positive working culture. 

Invest in your staff

Providing your staff with opportunities for career development, training and promotion will help them feel like a valued part of your organisation – and employees who feel valued are far more likely to stay. Investment in your employees does not always have to involve money either – if they love their jobs they will be happier at work – so it’s worth your while to make sure that your staff enjoy what they do. One way to do this is to ask everyone what their personal career goals are and how their current job fits into that. Showing an interest in their careers shows your staff you appreciate them and are interested in them, encouraging their loyalty to your business.

Communicate well

Good communication helps your employees understand the business, its goals and their role in it. When employees understand clearly what is expected from them and what they can expect from the company they will work more effectively. Companies that encourage the sharing of ideas and offer a way for people to feed back concerns help their staff to feel part of the organisation.

Offer perks

In our experience employees are not bothered about office gimmicks such as beanbags or ping-pong tables but they do value bonuses such as flexible working hours or an extra day of holiday. Perks don’t have to cost the earth – an occasional team lunch out is an easy way to show your appreciation or office delivery of cakes will go down well.

Check salaries

Although money is not always the biggest motivator for staff it is important that your employees feel they are properly rewarded for the work they do. You can check your salaries against a recent salary survey – RecruitAbility produced our first salary survey earlier this year – email us here if you would like a copy.

For more information on RecruitAbility and the services we offer please visit www.recruitability.co.uk or call us on 01279 758855.