Boost employee satisfaction with these simple, yet meaningful gestures

Your employees keep the wheels of your business turning, so it is important to ensure that they feel happy and cared for. Their satisfaction has a direct impact on how successful your business can be and so finding a way of making small gestures to maintain a positive atmosphere can be vital.

We all know that we should live to work and not work to live, which means that making work somewhere that people want to be affects your retention of staff as well as your ability to recruit new people. Currently, only 64% of employees in the UK state that they are happy in their job role, which is amongst the lowest in Europe, and this is part of a trend of declining satisfaction in recent years.

To explain further, Adele Thomas of Distinctive Confectionery shares her insights on how to boost employee satisfaction.

Listen carefully

The main complaint of many employees is that they do not feel listened to, so giving them a chance to air their views within a company that is then prepared to make change can make a huge difference to a company atmosphere. Providing a forum for feedback and evidence that opinions have been taken on board shows your staff that you care what they think.

Corporate gifts for staff

Showing your staff that you appreciate them can take many different forms, and corporate confectionery and gifts can send a very direct message to them. This could be a reward for reaching certain targets, or something for everyone at a significant time, such as Christmas or a business anniversary. This can help your employees feel valued, as many people often feel that they are not appreciated. This simple way of saying ‘thank you’ can be memorable and goes a long way to increasing employee loyalty.

Make it fun

As more than 83% of staff believe that enjoying your work is the most significant indicator of success, making work a pleasant place to be, will be significant in keeping staff from leaving. This might involve team building activities, chance to relax or simply an office treat on a Friday afternoon. All of these give people something to look forward to and creates a culture within your business that employees want to be a part of.

Better benefits

There are all sorts of benefits that you can offer to your staff. It is reported that 64% of employees put more value on happiness than earning, so salary increases are not always what is needed to retain staff. These days, many staff appreciate things such as flexible working, gym memberships, improved facilities and social occasions to help make their work-life balance more manageable and the time they spend working feeling less like a chore.

Celebrate Milestones

Achievements should always be recognised, whether they are collective ones or individual. That means you should be willing to celebrate those milestones, whether it is someone working for the business for one year, or the business having been thriving for a decade. This can be acknowledged through gifts, away days, cakes or public recognition and helps let everyone feel part of the successes of the business.

If your staff do not feel happy or important to your success, then there is a limited amount of time that they are likely to remain within your business. By helping them to feel appreciated and to enjoy their time at work as much as possible, your staff are more likely to remain loyal to you. This kind of work atmosphere often gets talked about, and it will make it much easier to recruit new talent as word gets around that this is a business people aspire to work for.