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Keep Your Employees Happy
If a business is not performing up to its potential, most small business owners will look to putting in more hours as a viable option. Makes sense right? More hours = more production. Well that is not always the case. In fact, as a small business owner, if you are seeing the quality of the work being produced on the decline, the answer is probably the opposite.
People are not machines. It is just a fact that people who are happy will produce better work. If an employee’s morale is low, they will not take pride in their work and as a result the quality and quantity will suffer. So, when it seems like the morale is low in your office or warehouse stop working for a moment. Take a fun day.
The obvious is an excursion. If it means that you go to a party, or a dinner, or a movie or a theater production, get out of the workplace for a day, or even an afternoon. You could even make it something that happens regularly. For instance, on the last Sunday of every month you hold a picnic where you will provide the burgers and hot dogs.
You also can do things to get everyone picked up right in the office. Organize a walking club. Everyday at two, people who want to can get together and walk a mile or so. Watch how their production increases after they come back from the walk. The exercise will loosen them up and give them a fresh outlook at their desk when they return. Plus it will be promoting physical health which can never be bad.
Start a biggest looser competition in your office to see who can loose the most percentage of weight. Have weekly weigh-ins and prizes that you do in the middle of the workday Friday.
Have office chair races. Pencil throwing competitions. Do a stand up comedy show with the people on your floor.
Whatever you do don’t let your employees grow to resent being at work. Putting a ‘jolt’ in the monotony of being at the office is a good way to help prevent that.
Do you feel that these kind of activities will help to get better production out of employees. Please feel free to write more examples/ideas for small business owners to use?
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I have to agree that employing entertaining social activities to break up the monotony of daily work can be effective in maintaining quality production. Not only does it improve moral, but it allows for one’s employees to interact socially in a way they may not be able to during regular work days. This is essential to building a community and culture that bases itself in quality, because no longer does an employee’s actions affect co-workers and management, but teammates and friends. However, there is an entirely different beast of an employee who believes that work is just that… work. These individuals don’t tend to be inspired by managerially hosted moral improvement sessions. In fact many think it is a waste of time. While I worked at an aerospace manufacturing plant (the epitome of monotony…), the management employed a strictly monetary performance award system. Cash prizes and small raises would be awarded to individuals based on attendance, quality of work, most improved, employee of the month, etc… Believe it or not the system worked extremely well, because the effort based rewards were attainable by all employees. So remember to know your work force, because sometimes just a few extra bucks in the pocket, or an entertaining outing can go a long way to establishing good moral.