Going to work is something that most of us have to do in order to make a living and keep a roof over our heads. If you’re lucky, you enjoy going to work every day. Unfortunately for many, going to work is something that causes a lot of anxiety.
There are many reasons why your employees may feel a little anxious about coming into the workplace every day. The problem is, these feelings can affect performance. It’s important to find ways to provide your employees with peace of mind so they can give their all at work.
Benefits That Protect Their Future
Employees want to feel like their employer cares about their future. You can do that by providing quality benefits that your employees actually want.
That includes affordable healthcare options, as well as access to vision and dental insurance for families. It is also extremely important to save for retirement, which means providing employees with access to retirement packages.
For example, saving for retirement with an IRA allows employees to create tax-free earnings in retirement. To boost their savings potential, provide employees with free financial services so they can invest and save amounts on a monthly basis that will ensure they meet their retirement goals.
Beef up and Communicate Safety Procedures
If you want your employees to give their all at work, they have to feel safe. Unfortunately, there are many reasons why your employees might feel unsafe, which means you’ve got a lot of work to do.
Make sure safety procedures are updated on a regular basis and take the time to run drills for things like fires, active shooter threats, and tornadoes. This will make your employees feel prepared should the unthinkable happen so there’s no reason for them to worry at their desk about what they would do.
There are other safety issues that should be addressed with your employees too. They include how you would deal with losing important data to a hacker, the process you use to resolve sexual harassment issues, or what would happen if the company is burglarized. Ask your employees for their input and worries and include all the information in a single packet that they can refer to whenever they want.
Easy to Take Time Off
Some management teams believe that the more employees work, the more work will get done. That’s not the case. Taking time off offers great benefits that include increased productivity, better health, and it can prevent burnout.
Make it easy for employees to take time off, which means streamlining the reporting process and making sure they have plenty of sick and vacation days. It also means encouraging time off like taking:
- Short breaks throughout the day, which might include creating comfortable break spaces in your office.
- One day, one morning, or one afternoon off every week, which allows employees to run important daytime errands.
- A short nap of 10 or 20 minutes during the workday when they need an energy boost.
Give Employees Autonomy and Control
Your employees want to feel like they are contributing something important to your company, and they want to feel like they have ownership over how they do that. Instead of micromanaging your employees, you can provide them with peace of mind by providing them with autonomy at work.
You can do that in many different ways. You might allow employees to work any schedule they want, you can make their job performance-based, or you can allow employees to choose which projects they want to work on.
Leave Your Door Open
There’s a lot going on in the lives of your employees, both personally and professionally. Whatever is on their minds can impact their time at work. Allowing them to get it off their chest can be extremely helpful.
Encourage your employees to speak up. That includes regularly checking in with individual employees, acting on the information they provide, and listening without passing judgement or providing unsolicited advice. Let employees know that your door is always open if they have something they need to talk about and they will know that they have support to tackle life’s everyday challenges.
If your employees are worried about going to work because they are worried about retirement, they feel like they can’t take time off, or they don’t have any control over their day, they aren’t going to give you their all. Follow these tips and you’ll have happier employees and a better bottom line.
