What does it take to make your employees this happy?
If you’ve ever wondered what the secret is to keeping your employees happy, some of the answers might surprise you.
According to a recent survey of 2,000 UK workers conducted by Reed.co.uk, the perfect job would be one with a four-day week of no more than 24-working hours, a salary of £61,000, and free fresh fruit every day. Oh – and a boss they could go out for a pint with.
There’s a lot more to it than this of course, but it’s clear from the survey that employees now value work-life balance more than anything else, with things like being near to the office, being able to work from home and being flexible around children’s school activities and holidays being right at the top of the list of desirable perks. Leaving on time every day was also really important for respondents.
Other lifestyle perks employees value include free or reduced gym membership and local leisure facility access, fresh fruit and free tea and coffee available onsite, and being able to wear jeans to the office.
As you’d expect, financial security still featured highly with good pension schemes, private healthcare packages and fair bonus schemes also seen as very important.
Now here’s where it get interesting. Having a say in their career and an opinion that’s valued, along with being in charge of their own workload and regular reviews and performance appraisals were among some of the most important things employees now want. They’d also like an understanding boss who they could also socialise with.
However, only 21% of workers surveyed said they were already in their dream job, while 54% don’t believe such a thing exists. Most workers said they are happy in their job around 57% of the time, with 58% saying their employer could make things really great with just a few tweaks, but weren’t always willing to.
Lack of recognition was also an issue for four out of 10 employees, and other problems experienced were not enough variety in roles and too much pressure to ‘get things done’.
In previous years, job progression and professional development were seen as essential to UK workers in the same survey, so it seems employees are moving away from chasing the next promotion to balancing their family needs, or interests outside of work, with their career.
So now you know the secrets to employee happiness, think about what you can do differently in your organisation. Could you be a bit more flexible around working hours if need be, or use technology to allow people to work from home sometimes?
While it might not be possible to offer employees a four-day working week, a few small changes, like reviewing the dress code, and maybe providing a free daily cuppa or banana for everyone are easy wins that won’t cost you lots to implement, but could make your employees much more happy while they’re at work.
And happy employees are more engaged, productive employees, which is something we all want.
