Empowering employee happiness leads to more productive employees.

For most employees, nothing's more important to them than their happiness, both inside and outside the office. Whether it's building relationships, enjoying a healthy and active lifestyle, or maintaining financial security, employee happiness comes in many forms, and your business plays a key part in putting smiles on faces.

While happiness is, first and foremost, down to the employee, tons of research is beginning to show that a happy employee is a productive employee. According to the Social Market Foundation, employee happiness provides a highly significant increase of almost 20% to their productivity.1 Moreover, as the Employee Happiness Index 2018 reports, HR leaders' main responsibility is to boost employee performance through their corporate responsibilities and benefits schemes.

The evidence is pretty overwhelming. Organisations have got to provide benefit schemes and support to empower their employees to be happy and stay productive. There are no two ways about it. So, let's look at a few ways businesses can achieve this.

What can you do to increase employee productivity?

Put things in place to reduce stress in the office.

There's nothing positive about a stressful environment. You wouldn't want to work in one, and neither do your employees. Stressful environments put a bigger strain on employee pressures and responsibilities. These pressures can cause even the most productive employees to feel overwhelmed, unproductive, and ultimately, unhappy. But there are a few things organisations can do to reduce the negative effect of a busy office environment.

Firstly, organisations should encourage employees to take regular breaks away from their desks. It gives them time to recharge their batteries and return with a renewed sense of energy and a fresh perspective on the task at hand. Another quick and easy win is helping your staff to lead an active and healthy lifestyle throughout their working hours. Simply offering fresh fruit bowls in the office or yoga sessions at lunchtime really goes a long way.

Encourage a good work-life balance.

With the likes of Teams, Zoom, Slack and everything in-between, employees are finding it more and more tricky to switch off from work and spend time with their families and friends outside the office. 

Almost half (48%) of employees surveyed as part of the Modern Families Index reported that working hours often make it difficult to spend time with their children, with around two-thirds stating that they regularly failed to leave work on time every day.

So it's easy to see how employee happiness may decline due to an always-on office environment. But organisations can execute changes to corporate policies to encourage their staff to switch off in the evenings and leave their work for the 9-5. 

What could this look like? Well, guidelines could be introduced to limit the times employees can send emails, or flexible work policies could allow them to spend more time with their families. Social events, such as office parties and team-building activities, are easy options that let your employees mingle with colleagues they might not regularly chat with and give them a much-needed chance to relax.

Offer perks that are designed to boost happiness.

The ONS Consumer Price Inflation Report announced that the cost of food and drink, recreational goods and activities, clothing, and transport are pushing the cost of living up for UK residents.4 With a rising cost of living, a quarter of employees say financial worries impact their productivity and job performance.

Not all businesses are in a position to give out yearly salary increases in line with the cost of living. And that's why many are looking for new opportunities to ease their employees' financial burden and hopefully make them happier.

One answer is offering employees salary-deducted or free access to dining club memberships or discount benefit schemes that serve up savings at restaurants, family days out, cinema tickets, and more. These benefits help people make their salary go that little bit further – allowing your employees to save money, enjoy more, and be happy.

Here at the Ello Group, we're in a unique position where we can offer your organisation an incredible range of discounts, be it through our tastecard, Gourmet Society, Hi-life, Coffee Club or MyGym memberships. Whether it's dining, heading to the cinema, treating the family to a day out, or working out, we're all about helping people do more of the things they love without breaking the bank.