ARTICLES - HAPPITUDE AT WORK
Let’s face it, most of us have been frustrated at work at least once.
Do you remember how you felt in that situation?
I guess you were not really motivated, not active during meetings or didn’t contribute with many ideas during brainstorming sessions. You just didn’t feel like giving your best at work because you were sick of it!
Being frustrated at work can have a negative impact on your professional performance and on your personal life. It is about time that companies and employees realise the importance of our behaviour at work, the way we communicate and the way we lead as it will definitely have an effect on our performance and fulfilment in general.
Many studies prove that having happier employees benefits the entire organization on many levels:
The employees are more engaged, motivated, creative, healthy, loyal to the company and have many other advantages.
As for the company, having a happier work environment will benefit innovation, performance, will reduce employee turnover, sick days and costs of low employee engagement. Further, happy employees are beneficial for all stakeholders:
Happy employees => Happy customers => Happy company => Happy investors
That’s great to know but how can we bring more happiness at work? Here is a short list of easy steps for you to analyse the situation in your workplace and take immediate action:
1. Analyse the engagement of your team based on relationships and interactions. There are many ways to do this: you can start easily by paying attention to whether your employees / colleagues are active during meetings, if they bring new ideas, or if they feel confident to speak up constructively. “Is there a good atmosphere within the team?”.
-> The answers to those questions might indicate if team members are motivated, happy in their work environment and feel part of the team.
2. Ask your HR or head of department how many sick-days you have in your team and check the frequency of employee turnover.
-> Analysing whether your employees are often absent or whether they are leaving the department too fast can indicate that they might not have felt like an integrated part of the team and might not have felt comfortable in that setting.
3. Don’t forget to say “thank you”, “good job” or “I appreciated your help”:
-> Gratefulness creates bonds, which results in a higher level of trust. With trust, you work better together.
4. Allowing mistakes and giving the possibility to learn from them will create a tolerant, positive attitude and will increase the team’s productivity by removing fears of committing errors.
And please, in order to make a change, let us not just organise fruit baskets and foosball tables for the teams as a means to “be happier”. If we want to create sustainable happiness in the workplace, we have to create an environment where communication, trust and happiness of the employees are part of the company’s culture and foundation. It is a process that requires time and attention from the right people in order to fully develop into a long-lasting part of a company’s DNA.
Implementing a strategy of happiness at work has to be done step by step and in a structured way.
Are you ready to take action?
Aurelie Litynski is a Chief Happiness Officer and the Founder of Happitude at work
Aurelie aspires to increase the awareness on happiness at work in companies and help leaders and employees being successful by creating more work-related happiness in their teams. She learnt about the topic of happiness at work from experts worldwide, became a Chief Happiness Officer in 2017 and created an approach, which tackles crucial topics such as behaviour, communication, empathy and trust within companies.