How to keep employees happy (and no, it’s not more money!)

I call today’s idea the Employee Happiness Hack.

As of today, I’ve interviewed 362 successful business owners on the Small Business Big Marketing Show. And almost without exception, one of their biggest frustrations is managing their people, making sure that they love coming to work and that they perform at their peek. Sounding familiar?

Clearly, one of the best ways to make sure that your business grows is to keep your employees happy. If your employees aren’t happy, they aren’t loyal, and if they aren’t loyal, they become a liability.

Knowing how to keep employees happy doesn’t always come down to a play rise … even though that may seem the most obvious.

So why not go out of your way to make sure your employees have everything they need to be happy and successful in their roles.

Here’s my 3-steps to having the happiest employees on earth:

1. Set aside some focussed time to list what you think your employees want and need to make them happy and successful in their roles. Reflect on when you were an employee, and think what you would have loved to have received from your boss. Don’t stop there … get out and ask them yourself.
2. Choose one idea on your list, and implement it. Now, that might be a different idea for each employee like say a book on a topic they love. Or it might be an idea that positively impacts all your staff like bringing in a masseuse for the day.
3. Conduct regular employee happiness surveys with tools such as TinyPulse that will ensure you always have a clear sense of where the most important people in your business are at.

Pro-Tip: Avoid thinking “Stuff them! I pay them and that’s enough!” That’s what bad bosses think. You’re not one of those, right?

That’s my 3-steps to creating employees that wouldn’t want to work anywhere else.

Head over to SmallBusinessBigMarketing.com/363 where you’ll find some additional resources including a link to TinyPulse along with the ultimate cheat sheet containing 49 employee engagement ideas.

If you’d like help implementing any of the simple marketing ideas I share, then become a Member of the exclusive Small Business Big Marketing Club, where I’ll personally support you daily on building a better business through smart marketing.

So, what have you got to lose?