I am often asked by audiences at my speaking and workshops along with many of my coaching members as to “What really keeps good employees happy at work?” What do you think?
Money? Of course, it is important to pay your employees fair and competitive wages. However, the right compensation might keep them on the payroll, but it won’t actually make them happy. Flexibility? Sure, everyone wants that these days. But it’s not the end-of-all.
The best way to achieve employee happiness comes from building employee relationships. When employees are happy, they’re engaged, satisfied and productive. Simply put, they’re all in. So, quality employee relationships are a critical element in any workplace these days. Employees with strong bonds to those they work with are usually the most engaged and tend to stay longer at the companies they work for.
Set the Tone
Many managers don’t realize how much control they have to boost their own departments and businesses and how employees can work with each other. As a leader within your company, you set the tone for how your employees interact. So if you encourage workplace friendships and camaraderie, it will filter down.
Five Strategies To Encourage Good Workplace Relationships:
- Get To Know Employees on a Personal Level.
In other words, get to know your employees’ stories. Learn a little something about each employees families, past work experiences, hobbies or interests. It will come in handy when you know of other employees with things in common.
Most good managers already do this, but they don’t take the next step to help forge connections among their team members. For example, if you know a new employee is a wine collector or an avid fly-fisherman or lives in a certain school district, introduce that employee to others who might share that connection. This shows employees that you understand they have lives outside of the office and can feel free to open up. It also helps break the ice, which makes new employees more relaxed.
- Connect Employee With Career Experiences
Situate employees with similar backgrounds together when possible. It helps employees play to their own strengths and encourages them to use their particular expertise around someone else who “gets it.”
For example, if you know that three of your employees have a marketing background, you can suggest they work together as a team on marketing components of a project. This helps employees share background experiences and come to appreciate each other’s skills.
- Be a Social Director Sometimes
Try to incorporate ways your team can get opportunities to socialize informally from time to time. You don’t have to go overboard and insist on forced socialization. That can cause a negative effect and one your employees might dread. Just suggest simple get-togethers among the staff. Better yet, ask your staff what they would like to do. Some may love to take on the task themselves by organizing the event.
Depending on the size of your group and your line of work, tailor some social events around what suits you the most. For some, it might be an occasional happy hour gathering, an in-house team building session, a work site picnic or even a monthly birthday celebration. Throw in some fun games, prizes and make an effort to pair different people up each time.
- Remind Other Leaders to Build Ties
Employee relationship building can’t just come from top management. If you oversee a group of supervisors, encourage them to foster relationships with and between their own team members. Share with them the positives of encouraging workplace camaraderie and include them in plans for getting employees to socialize and feel more comfortable with each other.
- Check Your Feedback System
Many managers like to see an honest back-and-forth among their employees but are reluctant to enter the conversation themselves. It is the manager’s job to encourage employee relationships by their willingness to spark honest communication. Help employees feel free to be open and honest with each other (or with you, their boss). Don’t be shy about letting your team see you communicate freely with them.
Of course, applaud and recognize employees when they put their heads together to come up with ideas on building workplace relationships and get creative without your prompting. Just knowing that you listen and acknowledge them makes them more likely to do it, which makes working together much more pleasant. Now that is Magical!
John Formica is America’s and Australia’s Customer Experience Coach, team culture experience expert, keynote speaker, and Top 10 Global Thought Leader and Influencer on Customer Loyalty. For information on customer experience programs, leadership training, team culture, business growth, how to find and hire great people and tailored training programs just for you or to book John to speak at your next event, contact 704-965-4090 or visit our website at JohnFormica.com.