Employee satisfaction and happiness are essential for a business to run smoothly and efficiently. It’s the role of employers to educate themselves on the needs of their employees and adapt their systems to account for these. To help you do this, we will work through some of the essential points employers must consider to ensure their employees are satisfied, happy and in turn, productive.

Mental Health

Employee satisfaction has always started with mental health. Mental health is a broad term encompassing anything from a single melancholy afternoon to chronic depression. It’s essential that all forms of poor mental health are recognised by management and dealt with accordingly. To combat mental health issues, consider corporate entertainment ideas like team building activities or awards dinners and socials. These social events break up the year and encourage team bonding, promoting a positive working environment in the process which greatly improves workplace mental health.

These are just initial ideas to get you started. There are many other mental health support processes that could be implemented in your business. The biggest challenge is finding the tools that work best for your company and your industry. It’s always advisable to test multiple ideas and get feedback from your employees, then roll out reworked or reformed tactics with this feedback in mind.

Don’t be afraid to make a mistake or spend money on a corporate entertainment idea that doesn’t work. Mental health support is a company investment because when it succeeds, productivity and employee retention will rise, saving you money and increasing future profit.

Company Culture

Company culture is a largely misunderstood term, that’s why many ask why great employees leave companies with good cultures.To keep it brief, the most important point is that your company’s culture needs to be qualified and not left up for interpretation. The creation of company values is an excellent starting point, giving employees an idea of what is expected of them from the viewpoint of the company.

Perks can also contribute to culture by instilling a specific company atmosphere (for example, nap areas or sofas in meeting rooms); however, to truly get the most out of a company culture, these perks and values need to be supported by a clear set of expectations which leads us onto the final point.

Expectations and Progression

One of the biggest causes of poor employee satisfaction is an unclear progression path. Those who can see the way to the next step are more engaged and committed in their roles; though, before you can lay out a clear progression path, employers need to make sure that employees know what is expected of them.

Expectations consist of what the business believes an individual should be achieving on a day-to-day basis, as well as the behaviours and achievements that employees must achieve to progress in the company (whether that is a promotion or a pay reward). This is where company culture becomes important, because whilst you may have company value statements implemented, employees need to know which of these statements they must follow to progress in their role. Simultaneously, managers and employers must be able to quantify how an employee is performing in their mission to reach these targets.

When a system like this is implemented, employees can develop their own goals and employers have a measurable way of tracking an employee’s progress to a given target. Combining these concepts and employees are given what they constantly seek – clarity;both in what is expected of them and how they can move forward. This is a cornerstone of employee satisfaction.

Even if you feel like this may not be in an issue in your own business, it’s important that you discuss the topic of progression as many employees find it a challenging subject to bring up with their employer.

To conclude, employee satisfaction cannot be fixed through one technique alone, but through the combination of many. In particular, corporate entertainment ideas to encourage a positive working environment and a good company culture supported by clear expectations, to help with goal setting and progression.