While many entrepreneurs begin their business ventures alone, very few can say they stayed that way for long. With so much to do and so little time to get it done, it’s impossible to handle everything yourself. In fact, even the most successful business owners out there were lent a hand, despite how the media may portray their successes. Unfortunately, with the many worries on your mind, you may forget that success is only possible if people want to work for you.

To create a team who love what they do, here are twelve ways you can cultivate a happy workplace.

1. Hire The Right People

A happy working atmosphere can be difficult to cultivate and easy to destroy. In fact, it only takes one bad apple to spoil the mood for everyone. Whether they gossip incessantly, slack off all the time, or do something even worse, like steal from others, you don’t want a poor employee on your team.

Thankfully, by investing more time and energy into the hiring process, you should be able to avoid this. Just make sure you also steer clear of making any obvious hiring mistakes.

2. Offer Flexible Work Hours

Although nine to five is the typical working day schedule, this doesn’t mean that those hours are the most productive for your entire team. Some will do their best work much earlier, while others are a lot happier working a little later. With that in mind, you’ll find that many of your team will appreciate being offered more flexible hours. This is especially true for those with children or other important commitments. You may even want to allow some employees to telecommute.

3. Create Places To Relax

While the workplace is certainly for work, your employees still need somewhere to relax and have fun during their breaks. If you expect your staff to take their breaks at their desks, they’ll struggle to switch off and could burn out as a result. To prevent this, you should speak to employees about what they want out of a recreational area. You may not be able to accommodate every suggestion, but you should be able to create a space that everyone enjoys.

4. Keep The Space Clean

Mess, dirt, and clutter are all subtle sources of stress, which will ultimately frustrate and distract your employees, harming the mood of the entire office. For this reason, you have to make sure that the workplace is kept as clean and tidy as possible. You can hire a cleaning service to handle most of this work, but you should also ask that employees tidy up after themselves too. This means washing their own dishes and clearing out clutter from in and on top of their desks.

5. Allow Employees To Decorate

As important as it is to cut down on clutter, you shouldn’t ban employees from displaying photographs and other trinkets on their desks. After all, they are going to spend a large amount of their time there, so it will help to have something they love to give them a boost now and then. Plants are also a useful addition to a workspace, as research has shown them to improve mood and productivity in work settings. They also help to better air quality, keeping your team healthy.

6. Don’t Outlaw Office Romance

Many workplaces all over the world have banned their employees from having romantic relationships with one another. This makes sense in theory, as it eliminates accusations of favoritism, as well as the negative environment that could be created in the event of a breakup. That being said, trying to hide a relationship from your boss, or even moving jobs because of one can be even more harmful. Because of this, you should consider not outlawing romance entirely.

7. Reward The Hard Workers

No one wants to work for someone that doesn’t appreciate what they do. With that in mind, you should make sure that you incentivize your team and offer rewards to those hitting their targets and working the hardest.

The right point of sale system can make this easier, as it allows you to check the sales conducted by each employee quickly. These rewards don’t need to be particularly big, expensive, or flashy but they should be of value to your employees as individuals.

8. Have Some Fun Together

As important as it may be to focus on your workload, it does help to get out of the work routine now and then. By planning fun things to do as a team, you and your employees gain the opportunity to get to know one another better, have some fun, and recharge for a while. Whether it’s a day at an amusement park, a meal out a restaurant, or a trip to the bowling alley, a fun surprise for your staff is sure to put a smile on their faces and make everyone feel better about going to work.

9. Limit Any Unnecessary Interruptions

When you’re trying to get your work done, there’s nothing more frustrating than being constantly interrupted. This is especially true when these interruptions are unnecessary and completely pointless. With that in mind, you should speak to employees about the things that distract them throughout the day and work to eliminate them. Daily meetings are a common waste of time and source of frustration, so consider limiting yours to only one or two a week.

10. Encourage A Healthy Lifestyle

As with any other large group of people, sickness can be a major issue within the workforce. If even one employee gets ill, it can spread quickly throughout the workplace until everyone is feeling under the weather. This will, of course, harm employee morale, as well as risk downtime for your company. To keep your staff feeling their best, you should encourage them to stick to a healthy lifestyle. You can do this by providing health insurance, gym passes, and other benefits.

11. Stop Micromanaging Your Team

Nothing is more frustrating or insulting to a skilled employee than having their boss constantly looking over their shoulder. When you do this to your staff, it tells them that you don’t trust their abilities, which can knock their confidence and make them not want to work at all. Letting go of the reins is not easy, but it is something that you have to do. If you’ve invested time and money into hiring the best talent possible, then trust them to do the job that they were given.

12. Leave Your Door Open

Keeping your employees happy is a long and complex process. There are plenty of things that you can do, but you’re not going to be able to come up with all of them on your own. Because of this, you should allow your team the opportunity to offer suggestions, as well as voice any concerns that they may have. Establishing an open door policy shows that you’re always there to chat when your team needs to. For shy employees, you can also introduce a suggestions box.

If you want your employees to be the best that they can be, then they need to feel happy in their working environment. Creating a happy workplace isn’t always easy, but don’t think that it’s impossible. If you want your workplace to be happy, then you should go ahead and make it so. Offer rewards, have some fun together, and, most importantly, hire happy people. When you do this, you’ll start to see the positive changes quickly.

© New To HR