7 ways to boost employee satisfaction

What a bunch of whiners.

You pay your employees a semi-livable salary. Send them home every weekend with no more than five or six hours of work to be done by Monday. Provide a pristine office environment without tacky family photos and desktop Buzz Lightyear toys, which you’ve banned because they annoy you.

And what do you get for all that? Workers who do nothing but grumble about you when they think you’re out of earshot.

Bosses, if that’s what you’ve been feeling, Inc. magazine offers seven ways to improve employee satisfaction.

Now, hold on a minute. We know: What’s it to you if they skulk the office around all day looking like sad hobo clowns? Isn’t it useful to have underlings quaking in fear? It does wonders for their motivation when you gesture at a stack of resumes and say, “There are plenty of other applicants willing to do your job if you’re too busy for this project.”

But all that shouting you do, all the kicking of chairs and flinging folders across the desk at people, won’t lower anybody’s blood pressure. And chronic stress causes weight gain, lowers the immune system, and increases the risk of disease, Inc. reports.