It is very well known that a happier team will improve performance within the business however not all business leaders get this. There is a lot of very simple things that a business can do in order to improve the morale and “happiness” within their team. The business will then generally reap the rewards of this via good, sustained performance or subtle things like people not going off work sick. Here are some of the things that a business can concentrate on to keep their employees happy.
Health and Wellbeing Checks
There are people within the organisation who, when they have health or wellbeing issues, will speak up to their line manager and get the appropriate level of support from the company. However, there are also others that may not choose to speak up. As a result, it could be hard to comprehend fully if any support or help is needed for those particular employees.
Think outside the box on how you could tease information from them to gauge their current happiness and what more you can do. This could be in the form of surveys or health and wellbeing charts where they place their “mood” on the scale. Taking action to help with people that are showing as low is important, otherwise this becomes a “tick in the box” exercise.
Team Building Events
Doing regular team building activities within your organisation cannot only be rewarding for the individuals but also build better relationships between people, their departments, and overall management. There are lots of organised activities that could be arranged through companies. An example of this is treasure hunts for teams where the teams need to work closely to resolve the mysteries. These can be really high in energy activities and the feedback from the team members is usually extremely positive. This may be a few hours (or even a day) out of the office but remember that the happier the teams are collectively, the more chance you have within the organisation to have better performance results.
High Performing Culture
Lots of organisations have adopted elements of a high-performance culture where the organisation as a whole try to embrace this culture improvement. This includes having an environment where managers and other employees have the same level of respect and openness with each other. Also, an environment where people can speak up if there are issues and not be targeted is really key as part of this. This is something that can be taught in terms of the concepts within the organisation however if it does not get embraced by the senior leadership then it will fall to pieces quite quickly.
It is important that the leadership not only embrace it but cast the shadow by allowing open and direct conversations in terms of “coaching and feedback”, two ways. There are many different concepts and methodologies around this that people can adopt from external organisations. Some companies may wish to tailor this to suit their own business depending on current cultural issues or challenges.
In Summary
Do not overestimate the effectiveness of a high performing, happy team. Without this, the business may struggle to take itself to the next level. No matter if you have a big or small organisation, there are lots of subtle things you can do to improve this. Regular team events are recommended and could even be used as a reward to specific teams that meet their department’s KPIs. If you want to ensure that you have a happy team and therefore a happy business, you need to support from the ground up.
