Many businesses today are starting to offer fun perks to employees that are sold as incredible bonuses of working for the company. While it might be nice to be able to attend yoga classes at work or go on team outings, these businesses can actually fail where it really matters. People don’t care all that much about the fun perks that they can get if their real needs aren’t being taken care of, and their employer isn’t really interested in helping to support their career. If you want to invest in your employees, there are much more important things you can consider instead of (or in addition to) office snacks and subsidized gym memberships.
Health Benefits
Unhealthy employees tend not to be particularly productive employees, and neither are those who are worrying about their finances. Good health benefits not only help you to support and retain your existing employees but they can also help you to attract the right talent to your business. In addition to health insurance, you should consider extras such as vision insurance and dental insurance to help employees to cover all of their medical costs. Other health resources could be provided too, such as access to a certain number of free therapy sessions each year.
Regular Offers of Training
Image from Pixabay – CC0 License
While some people are happy to do the same job for many years, a lot of people don’t want to feel like they’re stuck in the same role forever. Even if they don’t move up the career ladder and get promoted, they still want opportunities to learn new things and perhaps take on new responsibilities. Regular training opportunities allow them to do this, and can often be necessary for your business too. You can visit website pages for training providers to explore how they can help your employees. Training to use equipment is an essential element of health and safety for many businesses.
Better Work-Life Balance
You may want to get as much from your employees as possible, but it’s vital to recognize that they have a life outside of work. You can’t expect them to concentrate on their work if they’re burnt out or dwelling on something that’s happening at home. A lack of work-life balance can make employees extremely unhappy, so it’s important to consider how you can change this for them. More flexible working allows people to take care of their other commitments so that they are more prepared to be productive when they’re at work.
Give Productive Feedback
Another way to help with employee development is to ensure they receive productive feedback that helps them to perform better. This should be an ongoing thing that allows them to continually grow and develop. While six-monthly performance reviews are useful, they shouldn’t be a time to spring complaints on an employee. Instead of saving up issues to unload on them every few months, they should receive actionable feedback as soon as possible.
Invest in your employees and you could see that it improves their productivity, happiness, and skills.
