As an HR professional, do you ever think how much easier your job would be if all of the employees were satisfied? If all the staff you interact with loved their jobs, you’d probably love yours more as well. While there are some workers that are determined to be dour at work, most employees would appreciate your efforts to make them happier on the job.

Here are seven simple ways to inspire employees and increase satisfaction:

1. Employee Orientation – One of the best ways to have satisfied employees is to make sure they’re pleased from the get-go. Offering a thorough orientation will ensure expectations are realistic and that new staffers don’t come in with rose-colored glasses that will quickly fade. Proper onboarding encourages positive attitudes and can reduce turnover.

2. Positive Work Environment – An upbeat workplace is a necessity. If the workspace isn’t positive, you can’t expect the workers to be. Encouraging one another, avoiding micromanagement, giving positive feedback and ensuring criticism is constructive are all ways to keep the environment a place where employees can do more than survive – they can thrive!

3. Provide Competitive Benefits – Fair wages are important, but competitive benefits are also critical to keeping your workforce satisfied. If your benefits package is thin, employees may look for other opportunities with firms that are more generous. Beyond insurance, benefits such as flex time, paid holidays and personal days are important factors to employee satisfaction.

4. Workforce Engagement – Employees that don’t find their work interesting or don’t feel they are contributing to the mission of the firm will not be engaged. For employees to be satisfied, they must feel like they are part of something bigger than just what their individual work tasks are. Include staffers in goal setting and how they fit in the corporation fabric to increase engagement and satisfaction.

5. Develop Skills – Everyone needs something to working toward. Stagnation is unfulfilling. Employees have more potential than their current level of functionality. Encouraging employees to fulfill that potential will increase engagement and satisfaction. Whether it’s training opportunities, mentoring, online courses or external training, encourage staff to always be improving their skills.

6. Recognition & Rewards – Employees enjoy an atta-boy and it need not be a public show to mean something to employees. Encourage supervisors and managers to acknowledge employees deeds on a daily basis. Also implement a formal program company-wide to recognize top achievers in every job category. Healthy competition can boost morale, encourage hard work and increase satisfaction and retention.

7. Track Job Satisfaction – Don’t sit back and just hope that employees are satisfied – put some data behind it. Offer anonymous online surveys or mobile surveys to effectively track how employees feel about benefits, recognition, supervisor feedback and other aspects that contribute to employee satisfaction. This allows you to improve, tweak and monitor satisfaction levels to reduce turnover and save the company money.

HR professionals have one of the most challenging jobs in a business because your job is considering everyone else’s job and how well they like it, how likely they are to quit or how their attitude affects coworkers. Increasing employee satisfaction through these and other measures can make your job (and everyone else’s) more satisfying and fulfilling.

Originally posted on jobscience.com.