Motivating your employees to not only excel in their job but have fun while they do it can be tricky. Especially in businesses that make their money with sales or have contact centers for support. Call center workforce management can help you lessen the stress of the actual work but you as an employer can make the life of your employees easier and happier, in turn morale boosts increase efficiency.

Here are some tips that companies with happy and productive employees utilize:

Smoothie Tuesdays and Massage Friday

I took this advice straight from the playbook of Software Advice in Austin, Texas. While their perks are amazing, they know that in order to get their employees to have fun, work really hard and stay with them, they need to make something stressful appealing. Offer your employees either the same or something similar. Smoothies are not only healthy they are yummy too and honestly, Massage Friday? That’s like the best thing ever to release some of the tension that builds during a stressful week of hard work.

Costume day/ Theme day

Moz was voted #1 place to work for in Seattle. Why you wonder? Again, amazing perks like paid vacation, yep you heard me right, but also because they have fun at work. If you follow them on facebook you get to see a creative work environment where employees are encouraged to be out of the box, be unique, and have dress up days. I look forward to Halloween every year because I love looking at the pictures of their dressed up teams. Halloween Whiteboard Friday was one of the best ones yet, simply because Rand Fishkin sounded funny with vampire teeth that wouldn’t come out. (Okay, Okay, the content was amazing too.)

Creative Freedom

Yes this is a bit broad, however, Google has mastered the art of giving creative freedom to their employees. Open spaces, dress comfortably, nap pods, fully stocked kitchen, work outside if you want, hang out in a team, or even take a bike ride around the campus. Understandably this isn’t realistic for all companies, but you can definitely learn some things here. Give breaks, be less stringent on dress code, because honestly, if your suit or formal wear is uncomfortable people will think a lot more about how they wish they wouldn’t have to wear this than using that time thinking of great ways to help the company. If you need a dress code, give a day a week for casual outfits. But do give your employees some freedom, let them approach you with ideas and most of all truly hear them. They are your front line, they know what works and what doesn’t.

Tournaments and Adventure

Qualcomm was listed as the 11^th best place in the US to work for because of their overall dedication to employees and their families. They value their input and have an annual conference to hear ideas. That’s pretty neat, but researching the company listed this as benefits: “Leisure Life: Partake in tournaments. Adventure outings. “Learn To” programs that teach scuba diving, surfing and more. There are groups for aviation, motorcycle buffs and more.” That’s pretty cool. It all goes back to a healthy work life balance. While Qualcomm offers this for leisure, offering a sales tournament with a perk (like a day off) can work wonders on morale. Make it an achievable goal and stack the goals higher the next time. Many people are competitive and thrive on a reward system.

Wellness Days

While wellness days sound similar in nature to the massage Friday I have mentioned earlier, MasterCard for example treats its employees to wellness programs and providers to improve their personal health. They have recognized that healthy employees are better employees and invest in such. There are many ways even a smaller company can improve employees health like a stocked kitchen with healthy foods, yoga courses, corporate retreats. An employee pursuing a career in finance will work hard and relax little.

Clearly there are more ways than the ones listed that help you promote a healthy, happy work environment and foster employee morale but hopefully it is a start and something you will consider. Your employees will thank you for it, and so will your customers. Oh, and one more thing I feel should be mentioned too:

You know what happens when employees are happy and love their job? Retention rate stays high. You know what else happens? More people will apply for open positions because word gets out about how awesome it is to work at your company. This in turn allows you to pick top candidates out of a large pool of applicants. It’s a win-win all around.

What tactics are you using to boost morale? If you have created a unique work culture I’d like to hear from you and discuss what has worked and what hasn’t and why you chose to revamp the business structure.