It's a question that employers have been looking to solve for years through a range of different methods. Below, we'll look at a few initiatives you can introduce to create a happier and more productive team.

Measure job satisfaction

The first step to creating a happier team is to establish a benchmark by measuring job satisfaction. This needn't be difficult to implement, and can be as easy as setting up an anonymous survey for team members to complete, quizzing them on how much they like or dislike certain policies, processes and atmosphere in the workplace.

Using this, you can develop an understanding of what is loved and what is loathed in the work place - essential information to help you determine what can be changed to make the team happier and more productive. After all, there's not much point investing a lot of time and money into introducing perks that no one has an interest in and will not use.

Setting up annual employee satisfaction surveys means you can continually measure and improve satisfaction, identifying the success of previously implemented initiatives and new areas to improve upon.

Ultimately, there is no one size fits all process for improving employee satisfaction, as every office is different.That's why engineers at Hitachi have developed an AI system that helps identify personalised recommendations for individual departments for improving satisfaction.

For example, in one organisation, it turns out that the boss leaving early makes employees happier, as they are able to relax more. In another office, going for morning instead of evening meetings led to more content workers. One day, you may use a system like this to identify how to make the office a happier place!

Motivate your team with gamification

Healthy competition can be a great way to motivate staff in environments where employees tend to work alone and are responsible for their own success. Alongside that, recognition and rewards for achievements are strong motivators. Gamification works because it taps into all three of these motivators, and is ideal for team members working in sales or customer service.

With gamification software, you can set up a reward system to motivate your team to achieve great results, which could be in the form of prizes or extra commission based on whether they achieve or exceed their targets. On top of that, scoreboards can be displayed in the office on a big screen to keep the team in the loop, recognise the top performers and inspire the whole team.

But team members don't necessarily need to be competitors for gamification to work. Companies who want to foster a real team spirit can use it to highlight and reward achievements made by the entire team, benchmarking performance against previous months.

Let your team use the technology they prefer

Having the right tech for the job is another important part of employee satisfaction, particularly for businesses with tech savvy teams. Whether you're Mac or Windows, Android or iPhone, research reveals that one of the most important things for workers in the UK, US and India was having access to the latest gadgets on the market.

Offering devices and software that your team are familiar with not only keeps employees happy, it can make them more productive too. A long time Windows user may struggle to adapt to using a Mac, meaning it can take them longer to perform tasks if they have to re-learn the basics. Similarly, a designer may be most familiar with using Photoshop rather than other graphics package such as Sketch, meaning they can't create the great designs they're used to without a lot of retraining.

Organise regular social events

Finally, a simple and easy way to create a happier workforce is to organise regular social events, helping to break down barriers between departments, building company culture and making the team feel part of something bigger than their day to day work.

A simple way to get started with work social events is to simply set aside a budget for a bar tab at the end of each month, or to celebrate the completion of a particular project, achieving a major company milestone or beating specific targets.

It's also important to ensure that the social events you organise are interesting to employees - not everyone wants to go to the bar, for example if they need to drive home after. A great way to