Staff Health: How to Make Your Employees Rave About Working For You!

Staff Health: How to Make Your Employees Rave About Working For You!

Building a Disneyland for their employees is something that many creative companies have in common, both smaller and larger. It has been made famous by giants such as Google and Blizzard Entertainment. What can we learn from these hugely successful players' philosophy on long-term staff health and wellness? A lot. And you don't have to be a billion-dollar business to apply the concepts either. Here are five things you may not have thought of.1. Employee Lounge vs. Staff Room

I'll tell you what these places usually look like, and it's not pretty. They're usually really small with white walls and the blandest furniture you can find. Tables and a few chairs, sink and a 20-year-old fridge (that hasn't been cleaned in as long), a rusty toaster, some magazines from five years ago and possible a red microwave (someone made a creative attempt, once). It's not exactly a place you'd like to retreat to, so how can we make it better? We want it to be a place where you can relax, take a break and entertain yourself so that you can be at your most productive when you are working.Get a TV and some multiplayer video games (perhaps even Singstar or Guitar Hero) so your staff can interact when they are relaxing. Get comfortable and colourful furniture (it doesn't have to be expensive) and make the place feel warmer. Allow people to be creative by having colour-in books (yes, even adults like them), puzzles, soduku and crosswords around. Ask your staff what they like to read and subscribe to a few different magazines. Let your staff bring things from home to decorate the place and make it feel more at home. Buy a real coffee machine that makes above average coffee, but does not require a barista to operate it.2. Encourage New Ideas

People tend to be less loyal or care less about a business they have no investments in; so let them take ownership of it. Encourage people to share their ideas, always be open and remember to take your ego out of the picture (if you are one of those people who only really likes what comes out of your own mouth). Implement and give praise and you may find that your team starts to feel more like it's their business too. And if they see it as their own, or even partly as their own - they will begin to treat it differently.3. Health and Exercise

A healthy team is a productive team and there are countless studies arguing how poor health impacts performance both directly and indirectly. Arrange seminars and corporate fitness and health programs to not only make your team a stronger unit, but a healthier and more productive unit as well. Not only that, unhealthy staff does not cope well with stress and are more likely to burn out. And by the way, do not exclude yourself from these arrangements either; it would just enforce an "us and them" attitude among your team. Clearly you can never force anyone to take part in these programs, but if they show no interest to do so you need to ask yourself why that is.4. Inspirational Workplace

We cannot be as creative with our office space as we are with our employee lounge (former staff room), but there are certainly things we can do to make it less sterile. Allow your staff to personalise their desks to some extent with personal items and photographs. It won't look odd to any visitors or clients coming by, but it will make their space feel more like home. You could also create so-called Mood Boards (make it a team building exercise!) on A3 paper, frame them and put them up around the office. Not only did you allow your staff to decorate the place, the Mood Boards mean something to them and serves as an inspiration every day they come to work. Keep them dynamic too, if you've had them for six months, take them down and rearrange them.5. Running Errands at Work

What if people could accomplish some of the errands they have to do in their spare-time, while at work, without impacting their performance? Surely this depends on what your staff's individual needs are, but several things could be coordinated for their benefit and here are a few examples:Have a dry cleaner come to collect and deliver their laundry. Not only is it convenient, but you are likely to get a group discount as well. Arrange for a physician to come around and do staff check-ups once every three, six or twelve months. Get people to plan and compile a grocery list and have it delivered to the workplace right before closing. Home delivery is usually only restricted by order amounts, so if you get a few people together there is no additional costs as well as you are less vulnerable to impulse purchases as you're not standing in the store hungry or with kids.Obviously it doesn't take a billion-dollar business do great things for your employees. And even better, people who love their workplace will not only rave about it (improving your image), but they are more likely to perform better and less likely to change jobs - even if they are offered more money. Lifestyle trumps a little (and often even a lot) more cash in your pocket!

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