Employee Assistance Program: How To Boost Your Company’s Morale
A happy, healthy workplace fosters better productivity. After all, happy employees are productive employees. Right?
However, the question is–how do you define what comes under positive employee morale?
Well, having an Employee Assistance Program(EAP) is one of the important ways to make your employees feel cared for. If an employee feels cared for, it automatically boosts overall employee morale. Hence, an EAP is a must to ensure positive employee morale.
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You might be wondering what an EAP is or what is included in an EAP. Simply put, an EAP assists employees in dealing with any work-related or personal issues that may affect their job performance.
Over 97% of companies in the US, with over 5000 employees have an EAP. So, if the employees are undergoing some mental health condition like depression, anxiety, or any other illness that affects an employee’s well-being, they can consult a therapist via this program. Through the program, they can also take advice on financial matters from experts.
The benefits of EAP are not limited to employees’ physical and mental health. Along with services like counseling and work issues, the program lets the employees connect to experts for drug addiction, gambling, or any other type of addiction.
An employee assistance programme in the UK works towards launching the best EAP to promote the well-being of employees. Even the Australian government has passed legislation for employers to ensure their employees’ well-being and safety.
While EAP is one way to boost your employees’ morale, there are several others. In this article, we will look at five other ways that will help you boost your company’s morale.
5 ways to boost your company’s morale
Well, you now know the importance of ensuring positive employee morale in the company. It does not only improve employee retention but also helps you attract top talent. Along with an EAP, there are different ways to achieve this. You can use any or all of the below-mentioned ways.
Foster open and frequent communication
Transparency is one of the key factors in boosting employee morale. Open and frequent communication ensures that you and your employees are on the same page and are working towards mutual goals.
You can begin by setting crystal clear and realistic goals for every employee. Group meetings are important, however, one-on-one meetings with each employee will help you track their progress and clear up their concerns. Communication can be one-sided or two-sided.
For instance, it can include sharing a glowing customer review or making an announcement about your new product to checking in with your employees to talk about issues at regular intervals. You can ask the employees the following questions:
- How are you liking your job?
- How do you feel about your manager?
- Are you content with your current job responsibilities? If not, how can we help?
- What challenges are you facing overall? How can we help?
You should have a clear list of goals that helps them grow and in turn your business too. Keeping in check with these points at regular intervals will help run things smoothly and employees won’t feel disengaged.
Recognize employees and reward them
Employee recognition has many benefits. It makes them feel valued and a valued employee will only work with more dedication. After all, it is a human need to feel appreciated and valued for their contribution.
You can make an employee feel recognized in numerous ways:
- You can also applaud them during team meetings
- You can implement a concept like a “wall of fame” where you can hang pictures of employees with a stellar performance
- You can even use social media to your benefit and upload posts mentioning and appreciating the efforts of your employees
- You can celebrate employee’s milestones by congratulating them on their work anniversaries. You can also reward employees with the best diamond awards or other memorable gifts to acknowledge their exceptional contributions
You can use any or all of these mentioned points to make your employees feel valued. While giving regular feedback is important for an employee’s growth, you need to highlight their strengths and collaboratively think of ways to utilize them better.
So, if you suddenly witness more number of employees resigning, it won’t hurt to consider employee recognition as a primary reason.
Use the right software/ tools
Organizing and managing activities to boost employee morale could get tedious if done manually. Fortunately, with technology in place, you can make this process easier. There are several employee and business management apps that offer you with powerful and mobile-friendly communication and engagement platform for the employees.
These apps can help you with the following things:
Employee recognition
Through the app, you can send updates about your company’s milestones like anniversaries or even let employees nominate their peers for rewards. Employees can comment on these updates which will drive employee engagement.
Broadcast good news
Well, you could have landed that long-awaited client or your company might be getting relocated to a bigger space, you can share this news via such tools. The apps allow for the addition of media files to make communication even more interesting and engaging.
Implement open-door policy
You can create a feedback system in the tool and even have a suggestion box where employees can put in their suggestions. You can cultivate an open-door policy through this as employees would be able to reach the HR or senior management directly.
Provide all necessary information under one roof
You may organize workshops and events from time to time. Now, registering for it each time could get tiresome. What if the employees had access to all the necessary information under a single system? Well, using an app, they can access it as and when they want from their mobile phones.
With the use of such business management apps, you can make the process of boosting employee morale more efficient.
Organize team-building activities to boost employee engagement
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Ever wondered how a high-perfomance team is built? A team consisting of members complementing each other’s strengths and weaknesses and who can count on each other is bound to grow themselves and the business. However, this demands solid trust among all members, and building it requires effort and time.
Team building activities surely help in some dopamine release which further helps in relieving stress. However, it also increases trust among the team members and makes them feel more connected to each other. These activities over time lead to collaborative work culture which helps in problem-solving and also motivates employees to be open with each other.
You can come up with some games which are both–educational and fun to make it enjoyable. A treasure hunt or trivia challenge can keep them engaged while letting their creative juices flow. While if your company has remote work culture, you can think of some online games or create your own that fosters engagement and is fun to play.
Take employee feedback
About 87% of employees report that they want growth in their jobs however only 1/3 get the feedback. This speaks volumes about how important getting employee feedback is. One of the primary reasons to take employee feedback is because it makes them feel heard. An employee who feels heard is likely to perform better
While taking employee feedback at regular intervals is crucial to increase their engagement, it is also important to take some steps on the feedback received. For instance, if you take feedback from employees every week, you should update them on the status of their actionable points. It might not be feasible to implement all the points, however, they should be aware of it.
You can collect employee feedback using the following ways:
- You can send employment engagement surveys quarterly or annually where employees can give detailed feedback anonymously if they wish
- You can sit with top performers of your company and get to know about what they like and what they don’t
- You can even use social media to your benefit and upload posts mentioning and appreciating the efforts of your employees
- Encourage peer-to-peer recognition
- Lastly, you can take an exit interview or ask the employee to fill out the exit feedback form when they resign
Hence, taking employee feedback no longer comes under a “should have”, rather it comes under a “must-have” list.
Wrapping up 7 ways to boost your company’s morale
Hopefully, the article helped you understand the importance of keeping your employees happy and ways to do so. Plus, doing so will not only help you retain employees and attract new candidates, it will save your overall business cost. A happy employee is less likely to take paid leaves. This, in turn, helps your business thrive.
Whether you are a small business or an established one, boosting your company’s morale will give you the desired results. Even if you have a small team consisting of content team members, you are bound to upscale your business. While if you have a large team, these tips will help you keep them happy. So try these tips and see the results for yourself!
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