by Maria C Collins

Created on: March 06, 2010   Last Updated: May 31, 2011

Many people hate their jobs and wake up every morning dreading the work day ahead. Unhappy employees do not give of their best work. It does not take much to make employees happy at work. Happy employees are productive employees, who bring benefits and profits to their employer.

 A safe, healthy, and pleasant workplace, where employees have the necessary equipment to do their jobs properly, is one part of the equation that makes a happy workforce. The other is a happy atmosphere and it is how workers are treated at work that creates the atmosphere.

 An employer should always treat employees with fairness and equality. Discrimination, for any reason, should not be a feature of any workplace. In most countries, discriminating against employees for sexual, gender, racial, religious, and, increasingly, age reasons, is illegal. There should never be different rules for workers in the same workplace.

 Workers should be treated with respect and good manners. No manager should ever reprimand someone before other employees. A reprimand should always be delivered respectfully and in private. A manager, or boss, cannot expect respect from employees if s/he treats workers disrespectfully. Bosses and managers should address workers respectfully using their names, “Hey you!” is not a respectful form of address. Bosses and managers should not be tempted to micro-manage, or to treat employees like children. Treating employees disrespectfully could lead to legal actions for bullying, or harassment, in many countries.

Employees’ main dissatisfaction with work, in survey after survey, is that they do not feel their employers appreciate them. Workers do not necessarily want that appreciation to be monetary; sometimes a boss, or manager, just noticing is enough. Workers say that their employer always notices when something has gone wrong, but rarely when something has gone well. Sometimes, just the words “thank-you” or “well done” or “you did a really good job” are sufficient to make that worker’s day. It also encourages everyone else in the workplace to achieve better results. Employees get especially upset, when management fail to recognize, when a worker has made extra effort and perhaps made the company look good to customers, or forestalled a situation that could have made the company look bad in customers’ eyes. Management should also remember that workers’ loyalty is important to the company and that loyalty is a great quality to have amongst a workforce. Loyal workers stay with the company, reducing training and recruiting costs.

Good ongoing training and staff development is good for both employer and employee. It keeps workers interested, stimulated, and skilled, and it keeps them engaged in the company’s aims and a skilled, properly trained, and engaged workforce brings the company greater profit.

 It makes good business sense for companies to treat their employees properly at work. It helps them to retain staff and, more than that, it keeps workers happy in their jobs. A happy workforce is a productive workforce. Happy workers do good work, they are proud of themselves and their company. They are loyal and apply their best efforts to ensure that their company does well.

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