7 Ways to Get Happier, More Productive Employees

New research into attitudes and work has consistently shown that happy employees make their employers more money. While it can be tempting to believe that happiness is something that has little to do with a person's employment, most people's work environments actually have a lot to do with whether or not they're happy. Whether you're a small-business owner, a brand-new startup, or the CFO of a well-established Fortune 1000 firm, invest in your business by investing in your employees' happiness. Here are seven ways you can transform your workforce into a smiling, horde of productive and happy moneymakers.

1. Less Micromanagement

Few people like being watched while they work, unless they're a performer or professional athlete of some kind. Even fewer enjoy the micromanagement that often accompanies being observed. Trust your people to be up to the work they're supposed to be up to, and your leaving them alone will yield greater satisfaction and a fatter bottom line. Whether you need to look into getting employee business credit cards or you need to get a more robust business management platform that allows for greater flexibility and freedom, lightening the reins on your team can pay off handsomely.

2. Free Food

Google — regularly touted as one of the best places to work — believes free food is an integral part of employee productivity. Because of this belief, they have micro-kitchens located no more than three minutes from each office on their campus, and they're open all the time. If you're hungry and unhappy at Google, it's apparently your fault. While not every company can offer free food at that level, you can provide a free lunch once a week to your staff. Pick something local, tasty, and popular, and your employees won't doubt that you value them.

3. Frequent Rewards

It turns out that one big reward every year or so isn't as effective at making the people who work for you happy as a series of smaller rewards that happen more often. Even just positive feedback that happens regularly can increase workers' happiness. Big raises or rewards tend to lose their shine over time, while more frequent rewards work to fuel the fire. Give small presents and real pats on the back with regularity, and your people will be happier and more productive for it.

4. Tend the Unconscious

Happiness doesn't only occur through conscious means. Mood-elevating colors, music, and scents can all lend a hand. You can also curate a work environment that includes elements of variety and surprise. Both of these — when they're positive in nature — can make people pay greater attention to what is happening, how it feels, and it's relationship to what normally occurs. The result is people given a small break from the mundane — something that in and of itself is usually a pleasure — without being required to swear off the routine things about life and work that are enjoyable, meaningful, and stabilizing.

5. Better HR

While it should go without saying that the people best-suited — in qualifications and temperament — to the job they're doing will be the happiest doing it, "qualifications" is often only aspect of assessment HR departments use. Don't underestimate culture, fit, and expectation. Many companies are realizing that better HR can yield a happier workforce. Invest time and resources in making sure you're hiring people who will fit in with your overall goals, values, culture, and work environment.

6. Recognition

For many employees, nothing creates good feelings as quickly and meaningfully as being recognized as having done something well. Don't hold back when it comes to praise. While it's nice to add ceremony and award to recognition at larger events, creating a work culture where recognition is commonplace can also yield happier employees. It lets them know where they stand with you and with co-workers, and it reminds them that they're in an environment that values the specific individual they are and their very specific contributions — things that make almost everyone feel happy. 

7. Talk to One Another

It's hard to overstate how far good communication goes in making your employees happy, and while making sure talking honestly and openly about the job is always on the table, it's also imperative that the work environment be a place where people talk to one another in general, and in personal ways. Set a tone in common areas by talking with employees about everything: work, not work, sports, TV, whatever. It may take time, but as people get used to the practice, friendships will form, and friends at work will happy employees make.

So, don't just ask for more done in less time. Tend to your employees' happiness as you would a beloved garden, and productivity will flourish.