By Lucy Hurst, Managing Director- Sherbet Donkey Media 

Employee wellbeing should be incredibly important to any company that wants to retain its employees. 

Employers should learn from their bad bosses

If you asked most company owners, you would most likely find that, in the past, they have worked for employers who were just terrible, and it made for a horrible working environment. Yes, believe it or not, most company owners have done their time in rubbish jobs. However, the key to this experience is that they’ve learnt from the mistakes of their previous employers, rather than trying to emulate them, because leadership should want employees to wake up on a Monday morning and think “ahh work” rather than “ugh work”. Try not to be unrealistic and expect employees to wake up with star jumps, followed by them skipping into work. Some workplaces are lucky enough to have an excellent team of skilled employees; thus, the need to retain them, and the need for them to enjoy working there. 

Simple things employers can do to maintain a positive working environment

It is important that companies maintain a positive working environment for all employees. Some companies have a fridge which they try to keep stocked with fizzy drinks, chocolate bars, crisps, and other snacks, while staff do descend on these like locusts, a small gesture like this seems to this appreciated. Many companies want to do all they can to make sure staff feel like they want to come to work. Every morning, the first question that gets asked in creative settings is “right, what do we want to listen to today guys?”, at which point a playlist is selected on a music streaming service and that is listened to that in the background while employees work. 

A likeminded team

Companies should strive for a team that are all incredibly like-minded, so everyone gets along, and everyone is pushing for the same results. Working on streamlining systems and processes to make things easier for everyone involved is also something that companies should. 

Office Dogs

A lot of companies are, also, now allowing “office dogs”. While these obviously don’t live at the office, they spend as much time there as their owner does. An office dog can keep everyone on their toes as they’ll like to push boundaries. A lot of office dogs are excited about absolutely everything, they like to “say Good Morning” to all employees and may often appear with bottles, stationery, bits found in bins, essentially all sorts, in their mouth. Office dogs are great for keeping everyone on their toes, boosting morale and can be complete softies as well. 

Don’t micromanage 

Micromanaging should be kept to an absolute minimum. No one wants someone breathing down their necks all day, every day. If you have a good team, then you should trust your staff to do their jobs effectively and simply outline what projects should be prioritised. 

Give employees a chance to express themselves

If your staff decide to dress up for Halloween or similar, then let them. Again, this will boost morale. Plus, you never know who might come dressed as what. I’m sure, if you decide to allow this, then you will see quite a variety. You know what they say though, “Variety is the Spice of Life”. 

Have a Christmas party with your team

Have a proper Christmas shindig with you employees. Even if you find that you’ve doubled in size, find something that everything, or the majority, can enjoy. You could do something like miniature golf followed by a meal, or for larger parties you could look at something like interactive darts with drinks. In either case you could also look at paintballing. Some staff will let their hair down more than others, but that’s their prerogative at the end of the day. You’ll probably also be able to identify any “crowd pleasers”. This is the person who does the kind of things like doing a tequila shot, squeezing the lemon into their eye, and then snorting the salt or snorting chilli powder. 

Offer and reward progression

Staff members should be free to be themselves. Companies should also look to offer progression and encourage our staff to learn wherever possible. They should also reward progression and ensure that staff are paid what they are worth. It should be extremely rare that a member of staff will come and ask for a pay rise, simply because when you notice someone doing well, you should be rewarding them for it. 

Good for staff retainment and attainment

As mentioned above, this is all really good for staff retainment, however, in industries where people talk, it’s also good for staff attainment. If you find yourself headhunting for new talent using LinkedIn and they are, understandably a little unsure, then you can encourage them to pick anyone of your employees and message them with any questions. Don’t tell staff what they should say, and they might not always tell you if they’ve been messaged. It does seem to be a great tactic for getting new staff on board though, especially if staff are really genuinely happy working for you.