Being happy is an important goal for many people in life. If you own a business, it is also important to have happy staff, because happy people have fewer concentration problems, and happy people can therefore deliver their work with better quality. But to what extent can you as an employer or colleague ensure that your staff is happy?
To help you have happy people around you, in this article I'm going to address the question: can you make employees and colleagues happier?
Positive attributes of happy employees
In any case, happy employees and happy colleagues make for a great atmosphere at work. The reluctance you may have because it is Monday can be a lot lower if you have a nice atmosphere at work.
This directly also means that you will get started faster with the start of your day as well.
Research shows that a high sense of psychological well-being and job satisfaction increases employee productivity. This can save as much as 12% in terms of activities performed in 1 day.
The separate thing is that there are many different results in terms of psychological well-being and productivity at work it can in fact lower it.
This may be due to the way certain studies have been conducted, as well as the relaxation people can have when they experience no stress at all. The combination with job satisfaction may therefore be important to maintain productivity.
Wellness also has multiple ways of looking at it. One form of well-being can improve productivity, but another form of well-being can actually reduce it.
In general, though, people who are happy are less likely to call in sick and also less likely to be actually sick.
In the process, happiness also creates a positive mindset, if you are just unhappy it can change your entire mindset and thinking. You start thinking more in winning and losing terms and more about criticizing other people, especially when something goes wrong. This can result in people at work bullying each other.
A positive mood actually allows for more creativity, tolerance, generosity and causes you to be less or even not defensive. The focus then is not on what is going wrong, but on what is going right.
Is a happy workforce the right goal?
So happy staff matters for fun collegiality, but what is happy staff? What do you imagine happy staff to be? Are they people typing drily and providing each other with a cup of version coffee every half hour throughout the day?
Or is it just a lot of laughter among themselves and little work?
In short, is being happy in the workforce the right goal for you? Actually yes, but then happiness must be derived from the work they do. Ideally, you want the work to make them totally absorbed in it and proud of their work and happy because of it.
What can you do to make your staff happy?
You may think that a high salary is the way to make your staff happy. In the short term, this is true. People can afford better vacations, maybe they can pay off overdue debts and eat out once, but all those things get used.
In the end, you always achieve that average feeling of being happy, no matter how much money you have. Life does get easier, but not automatically happier.
Research also shows that money only comes fifth or after for people when they are looking for a job. The challenge of the job, the permanence of the job, the benefits the job offers (such as group health insurance) and even whether the manager really cares about the well-being of the staff all come above that.
So before you pull out your wallet, see if the work can be more challenging, if you can offer someone permanent contracts and if you can make a nice deal with a health insurance company.
In Japan and China, companies are also experimenting with external factors to make staff happy, for example, one IT company is hiring models to talk to the guys on their breaks to make them feel good, a kind of emotional attraction booster, but experts already indicate that if you overemphasize that you want your staff to be happy, they may start to wonder if they are happy, and chances are the answer is no anyway.
So if the question is not asked by the staff, happiness is actually much easier to find.
A good relationship with your staff
First, even a good relationship with staff as a manager or owner of the business is most important. Through that relationship, you can show that you truly care about the well-being of your staff or colleagues over whom you are in charge.
For example, I know of a company that is aware of personal circumstances of staff that automatically gives them the space to go home earlier if their family needs it. Instead of thinking about the extra work this is for colleagues, they think about solutions for staff.
Perhaps it's annoying at first for those colleagues, but it's also reassuring when you can go to your manager or boss with things from your personal life. That way you can keep a good work-life balance.
Giving compliments
"Well done!" it really can be that simple. Giving compliments on work done creates a better sense of well-being because it supports self-confidence . In the process, this in turn also improves the bond with the manager or boss.
1 on 1 conversations
And I don't mean the official evaluation interviews, because they are precisely what often cause stress. Walk over to someone for a 1-on-1 chat. Bring that person a cup of coffee or tea and just strike up a conversation. This can be about work, and if your employee wants to tell you something personal, he or she will often reveal it subtly. Then you can always ask about it if you feel that way.
You can also use the 1-on-1 talks to give a pep-talk, in which you use mental techniques to build people's pride, confidence and self-esteem .
Opportunity for responsibility
This is not something every staff member wants. There is a chance that someone is actually afraid of responsibility, but do you employ someone who has real ambition? Give him/her the chance to be in charge of something, for example, when you yourself go on vacation for a week.
Or another small project to start with. This responds to the challenge people want in work. The harder it is, the prouder you are when you succeed.
Demonstrate the impact of work
Helping other people is something that makes many people happy. It may not be obvious to everyone that their work is a step to help someone else or another business with something. Understanding how someone's work has helped people recently makes them happy and motivates them to keep doing the work.
But my staff remains unhappy
Sometimes you can do all sorts of things with the best intentions, but happiness is often still an individual thing that a person has to solve on their own. Staff, for example, can make themselves happier in the following ways:
Helping a colleague
Helping other people makes you feel happier. In addition, helping colleagues also helps to strengthen the group feeling within your company.
Meditate
By meditating for 2 minutes daily, you can experience tremendous peace of mind as an employee, and that alone can make you happier. After all, it also reduces stress from your work.
So if you have a space left over, turn it into a meditation room where people can retreat for a little silence and relaxation. (That old smoking room you use now anyway for broken printers or something)
Looking at your work positively
Something you may not be able to enforce as easily, but which does help well to improve job satisfaction is to write down 3 positive things or events from the work day daily. This trains your brain to look at work positively.
Want to learn more about mental techniques to improve your work or life in general? Then come to a seminar or workshop. Also check out the training courses offered by the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands.
Sources:
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/ocp/12/2/93/
http://amp.aom.org/content/21/3/51.short
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201007/how-workplace-happiness-can-boost-productivity
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201407/myths-and-truths-about-employee-motivation
https://www.fastcompany.com/3048751/happy-employees-are-12-more-productive-at-work
