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How to Encourage More Employee Loyalty in a Post-Pandemic World

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Employee loyalty|How to Encourage More Employee Loyalty in a Post-Pandemic WorldAfter the Great Resignation, it’s becoming increasingly apparent to employers that they will need to do more if they want employees to be loyal and stick around for a long time. The attitude towards the workplace has shifted significantly since the COVID19 pandemic and more and more employees are now putting themselves first, thinking nothing of quitting for better opportunities if one comes their way.

Because of this, employers need to think outside of the box and come up with creative ideas to encourage employees to stick with them. These days, employees aren’t going to stick around just because they have a job – there is so much more on offer elsewhere. Some of the main things that you can do to encourage more employee loyalty include:

Provide a Great Place to Work

First and foremost, employees do not want to feel like they are a slave to the company that they work for. Providing somewhere to work that is fun, interesting, and challenging for employees while rewarding them handsomely for the effort that they put in will not only attract more of the top talent to come and work for you but will also encourage them to stick around for longer. Focus on providing a workplace that people will not want to leave, even if a potentially better opportunity comes along.

Offer Health Benefits

After the pandemic, an increasing number of people care more about their health and wellbeing than they did previously, so it only makes sense for employers to take notice of this and offer benefits that employees will want to take advantage of for better health. Along with offering health insurance through your company to provide employees with more peace of mind when it comes to medical bills, you may also want to consider offering supplemental health benefits where employees can get discounts on additional insurance products, medical products, healthy food and more. Find out more about how some available health benefits compare with Soultran.


Invest in Employees

These days, employees don’t want to work somewhere where they often feel like they could be replaced at any moment. To encourage your best employees to remain loyal and continue working for your company for a long time, it’s important to invest in your people. This might be in the form of offering training opportunities for future promotions, paying towards the cost of online degree programs and more. The more you put into your employees, the more you are likely to get out of them.

Prioritize Mental Health

Last but not least, mental health in the workplace has become a hugely important topic over the past few years, especially after the COVID19 pandemic which had a huge impact on peoples’ mental health around the world. As a company, one of the best things that you can do to show your employees that you care about them as people and are a company worth sticking with is to make their mental health and wellbeing a priority.
With employees leaving companies that don’t meet their needs at a rapid rate, it’s time for employees to change their approach to employee retention and focus on providing a workplace that encourages workers to be loyal for the right reasons.

Practical Ways To Minimize Laziness In Your Workplace

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Minimize laziness in the workplace|Practical Ways To Minimize Laziness In Your WorkplaceIt’s safe to say that no employer wants to work with a lazy employee. Not only do they waste time, but lazy employees can also do massive damage to productivity – at least, that’s what many employers believe, and rightfully so. But it’s one thing hiring a lazy person and quite another thing when a previously hardworking employee becomes lazy. Different factors in the workplace can cause workers to become lazy or act sluggish at work. Focusing only on hiring “active employees” will not necessarily be the solution if those factors still exist in the workplace. So are you dealing with an increasing case of laziness among your workers? Here are some ways to minimize the problem and bring out the best in your workers.

1. Create opportunities for engagement

Bill Gates said it best when he remarked that lazy people make the best employees. Bill Gates is considered by many as the epitome of success when it comes to running a thriving business. According to this business mogul, lazy workers only look for easier ways to get the job done. You can deduce that although some workers are perceived as lazy, it doesn’t automatically mean they’re unproductive. If they’re engaged appropriately, they always have the potential to do so much more. Bill Gates, for example, finds that he’s able to get the most out of lazy workers by testing them with the hard jobs because he expects them to find an easy way to complete them. Of course, this may not be the case for every employer, but ensuring that your workers are fully engaged is a great way to energize them and keep them from being slothful. The most important thing is to find the right employee engagement solution that will work best for your situation.

2. Give them more challenging or different responsibilities

Many employers contribute to laziness at the workplace without realizing it. If your workers have to sit around doing nothing, for example, you can expect some level of sluggishness to sneak into their working habits. In other words, you can sometimes attribute laziness to work not being challenging enough. If your workers follow a mundane and monotonous routine, they will get bored easily and may start being complacent with their work. As soon as complacency sets in, you can expect laziness to start lurking close by. One way to minimize complacency-induced laziness is to give more challenging responsibilities to your workers. Doing this will bring out the best in your hardworking employees. Another option is to switch up their tasks a little, so keep this in mind. Give different responsibilities once in a while or find ways to make mundane tasks more exciting.

3. Reward them

While it may help to give lazy workers tasks, there’s only a thin line between giving more responsibilities and becoming a hard taskmaster. So, find ways to reward your workers for the extra workload. Workers, in general, tend to have a poor attitude toward work when they feel they don’t earn enough for what they do. Even well-paid employees may lack the drive to do more work when they feel their extra effort will not be appreciated. Also, when less-motivated workers realize that their employers notice and celebrate hard work, that can push them to put in more effort at work.


4. Communicate with them

Communication is an essential key to good management. It’s important to first communicate with a lazy employee before you set challenging tasks for them. Different things can cause a worker to perform below par at work, and a lack of healthy and engaging communication will make it impossible to pinpoint what your workers are lacking. So, if you notice some of your staff becoming lazy, speak with them about it. Find out what the issue is and how best to address it. This is especially important if you have a capable member of your working team who has started underperforming suddenly. Next, it is vital to let the worker know that they’re an important part of your business, so keep this in mind. By taking the time to clear the air with a slugging worker, you can quickly create the morale booster they need to start performing at their best again.

But you don’t have to wait until workers become lazy before communicating healthily with them. Always ensure that you create a working culture that encourages communication.

5. Avoid giving special treatments and privileges

Workers who do nothing to earn their positions may sometimes feel less motivated to give their best. Also, workers who feel their positions are secure regardless of their lack of effort will find little reason to work above themselves. That’s why it’s important to give all your workers the same level of treatment – no special privileges.

Also, workers who notice that other employees are treated better than they are may feel discouraged to give off their best. And some workers who may not have gone through the same robust recruitment process as the others or may have secured roles they’re not suited to may lack the motivation to be their best. Plus, such special treatments can send the wrong signal to other workers and lead to worker satisfaction and even disillusionment.

6. Be a good manager to all your workers

Following the previous point, it’s important to be a good manager to every team member. Granted, some may be more talented than others, but everyone plays a role and deserves the same level of treatment. If you cannot deal with every staff member the same way, you’ll end up breeding discontent, contempt, and dissatisfaction. All these can drain worker morale and encourage laziness.

Also, it helps to set unique goals for your workers. For instance, you don’t want to assume that every team member will meet their appropriate deadlines on their own. Instead, set goals with deadlines attune with their strengths and weaknesses. This way, you can hold them accountable and, in the process, encourage them to work at a faster pace.

4 Ways that Businesses Can Improve Employee Satisfaction

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People |Employee Satisfaction|4 Ways that Businesses Can Improve Employee SatisfactionAside from clients or customers, employees are probably the most important people responsible for the success of a business. Happy employees lead to a productive work environment, great results, and happy clients. Unhappy employees lead to a high employee turnover, and less desirable results. So, it’s pretty clear that employee satisfaction should be a priority for every business out there. If you’ve noticed lowered productivity, or an increase in employee turnover, it may be due to the fact that your employees aren’t satisfied with their work environment. Keep reading to see what you can do to improve upon this.

Vending machines

It may seem like such a small thing, but for many employees, the small things are what matter. Most employees spend the majority of their time in the office, so making that a comfortable place that requires nearly everything they could want is a great way of ensuring happiness amongst your employees. If you’re able to acquire vending machines with healthier options – even better. Your employees will know that you care about them and appreciate the fact that you’re taking an interest in their health. Get in contact with a vending machine business to see what they can do for you.

Incentives

Effective incentive programs are a great way of increasing productivity as well as employee satisfaction. Employees may feel underappreciated if they’re going above and beyond and not receiving anything in return. One way to fix this is to offer incentives for employees. Incentives don’t always have to be financial, although financial incentives are definitely the most desirable amongst employees. Knowing that their hard work is being recognized and rewarded will certainly improve an employee’s opinion of their working environment. This will also likely lessen your employee turnover and thus lead to a more stable work environment.

Better medical benefits

One massive factor when it comes to employee satisfaction, is the benefits that they get. Do they get a pension? Do they get a discount? And, most importantly, how do their medical benefits look? Many businesses opt for giving employees a weaker medical scheme, as this is much cheaper. But investing in a better medical aid for your employees can only do your business good. You’ll have healthier employees, a lower employee turnover, and employees who are generally loyal and productive. This is also a way of showing your employees that you care, which will help build better relationships between management and employees.

Workplace counselling

Once again, this is a way of improving your relationship with your employees. Workplace counselling has many benefits, both for you and your employees. Employees who are struggling with their mental health may not be performing as they should, and as an employer, you want the best for them. Workplace counselling has shown to be very effective. Keep in mind that your employees may be hesitant about counselling in the workplace, but once you assure them that everything will remain confidential, they may be more open to the idea. This will definitely help your employees become happier individuals.

Unique & Creative Employee Incentives You Could Be Offering

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Everyone who is a part of a business expects to work for a company who cares. It’s one of the very basic needs of an employee, that they are treated well and rightly so. There is an increasingly competitive marketplace for top talent out there and companies are desperate to recruit people who have charisma, brains and talent for the role that they work in. Due to the need to attract the top talent, the standard salary/pension/overtime benefits are no longer enough.

An employer who is caring about their employees needs to think outside the box. When you need cash fast for your business because you decide an impromptu meal out for your team is needed, you would do everything you can to get it purely to show your gratitude for the work that they put in. To that end, as a good employer you are expected to go above and beyond for your employees in the same way they will for you. Check out our unique incentives to keep your employees excited to be working with you.

Travel. Everyone loves a trip, and if you can incentivise that those who hit their personal and professional development goals a paid sabbatical to travel, people will be flocking to your doors, resume in hand. Employee burnout is a real issue in a world where we put a lot of pressure on our people and giving people a break – a paid break – is a great way to say thank you.

Staff Lotto. Having a staff lottery every week is an exciting way to generate office buzz and camaraderie. You can generate real prizes by matching the ticket money that the staff bring together, and then add smaller prizes for more staff.

Savings. Your staff may be appreciative of the idea that you could help them to save money. If you offer the chance to speak to the company’s financial adviser, as well as exciting employee discounts, your staff will know you are trying to do more for them.

Duvet Days. A business has to keep running, we all know that, but offering a flexible duvet day system is a great way for your employees to take paid personal days last minute. This avoids bogus sick days and employee burnout, while allowing your staff to feel like they matter.

Flexible Working. Offering your staff the chance to work from home is the ultimate carrot dangled in front of a prospective staff member. People lead busy lives and if you give them a chance to be able to attend family events and doctor’s appointments around their work, you are going to gain a lot of respect from people.

Offering incentives has to be a big part of your budget. Keeping a strong working capital in the account for last minute meals and fun nights out can mean that you are solvent and covered when it’s a time for celebration. Give your staff a reason to want to work for you and you’ll benefit from their loyalty.