Your employees are your biggest asset. Keeping them engaged and happy is vital to keeping your business running efficiently. So, how do you keep them happy? What are the key aspects that you need to focus on to ensure happy employees?

We looked at what some of the most successful businesses in the world are doing and what they are concentrating on now. In this day and age of post-COVID, work-from-home reality, companies have to focus on ensuring that their employees are happy and content. Let’s take a look at how to do so.

Make Sure They’re Protected

One of the most important things in a company is lowering risk and protecting employees. Investing in comprehensive workers’ compensation coverage will help you not only comply with your state’s requirements but also protect your employees in case they get injured or sick on the job.

Workers’ compensation covers lost wages, medical expenses, survivor benefits, retraining, and permanent injury. Additionally, this type of policy can protect your business should an employee file a lawsuit against it. Nowadays, you can even purchase your workers’ comp policy online in minutes, saving you precious time. And knowing that they’re safe will undoubtedly boost your employees’ job satisfaction.

Focus on Work-Life Balance

A work-life balance had become increasingly prominent before 2020, and COVID-19 spurred on. Employees started realizing that they could work from home and have more freedom in their work. This has become an essential part of any workplace, and if they can work from home, they want to do so more frequently.

Important issues being discussed in the workplace are family time, four-day workweeks, and longer maternity and paternity leave for new parents. More and more focus is being put on the freedom to live a balanced life while working and fulfilling their duties.

Open Up Lines of Communication and Engagement

With remote and work-from-home employees, communication can be quite tricky. However, there are numerous platforms and tools online that you can use to open up the lines of communication. Take a look at tools like Slack, for example. Here, you can communicate in real-time with your employees across the company. You are able to contact individuals, teams, and even the whole company in real-time. You can share files and instantly access them with the messaging service.

It also integrates well with other platforms. Project-based platforms like Monday.com or Trello allow you to create projects and tasks, assign them to employees, and manage them effectively. You can set deadlines, track progress, and monitor time spent on each task. You can also share files and map out future strategies for functions on the platform. These platforms integrate with others, so having a few automation tools is really helpful.

Focus on Training Them

Training and upskilling are really important for your workforce. Not only will this help with your company’s growth and smooth running, but it will also make your workforce feel more valuable. Employees who receive training have stated that they feel like the company is actually investing in them and are more likely to stay with the company.

Upskilling is a key part of ensuring that they perform and fulfil their duties. With the right skill set, they can become more independent and autonomous in their roles. This will allow you to expand on your role and have more time to grow the company. Training and upskilling have an incredibly high ROI, so focus on setting aside a budget for this annually.

Recognize and reward them

Employees who are recognized and rewarded for their hard work also tend to stay longer in the company. Consider having month-end awards, sending out emails of appreciation, and offering incentives to your employees regularly. You will start noticing that they will be more productive and will want to stay longer in the company for it.

Remember that employees will also engage more if you socialize with them regularly. After-work drinks or occasional office parties are a great way for your teams to bond and get to know each other well.

The Bottom Line

Many companies have eliminated the people part of managing their people, but after the various lockdowns and restrictions, employees have become much more than a number. To ensure you have happy employees, get to know their needs and find out what they want to get out of the job.