A kitchen and lunchroom was one of the best investments I made in my Iowa office. I installed a stove (not used much) refrigerator (used every day) microwave (used every day) sink (used every day) and a few cabinets with laminate counter top. If you have 6 employees one frig may not be enough -- the 1.7 cubic foot mini-frigs can be placed in employee's work areas and then they have their own so nobody uses "their" ketchup or eats their soup, etc.
The food prep area and lunch room allows employees to eat at the office. This does two things for you as an employer and one for the staff. First, when employees eat at the office they do not return late and generally take shorter lunches. Second, if your employees are eating at the office they are more easily available and can be interrupted. If a client walks in and wants to speak to Jane, she is back in the lunch room and you can get her. If the client walks in and Jane is eating at Fuddruckers a mile away, at best Jane can cut her lunch short, drive back and see the client in 15 minutes. Finally, the staff will be more inclined to bring their own lunches instead of eating out which will save them money and they appreciate the choice.

My staff was mostly women. I made it a point to purchase good toilet paper, usually Charmin. That small effort paid big dividends -- my female employees really appreciated that and it was not a significant marginal cost, even though I think we went through 24 rolls a week.

A good cleaning service is important. Keep the office clean, make sure that you get a service that will come and empty garbage every night (or do it yourself -- I did) so that your staff does not have overflowing waste cans. A clean office definitely makes for happier more productive staff.

Get a shredding service! If you go through lots of paper, and any real estate business will, get a shredding service to handle those documents. Usually you can get a 55 gallon or bigger container emptied bi-weekly for not a lot of dollars and your staff will appreciate you for not making them use personal shredders.


Of course, keep open lines of communication with staff, ask them what you can do to improve the workplace, and honor all the little requests. Little things do make employees happy!