5 Ways to Encourage Happiness in the Workplace
Happiness at Work is everyone's responsibility.
Creating a happy workplace where people can be filled up with positive energy, where they leave work most days feeling happy, fulfilled, connected and able to pursue their dreams and hobbies outside the office is our mission to create a better workplace, a better world and a better future.
Here are our top 5 tips to creating more happiness in your organisation!
We believe that the key ingredients to creating a happier workplace are: Results, Relationships, Purpose & Play. So when you are looking to improve the wellbeing and happiness in your workplace culture the easiest way is to start and “run the experiment”.
1 . What initiatives are you already doing?
Many workplaces are already doing great things in their wellbeing and happiness offering. However by focusing on perks, and benefits that we offer our colleagues and employees we are missing out on the opportunity to create a happier workplace. All the things that help our teams feel happier are not to do with extrinsic rewards, but a workplace that creates meaningful results, meaningful relationships, connection to purpose and a little bit of fun.
Take something you are already doing and change it to create more of a feeling of results (achievement, celebration, autonomy, recognition of work well done, progress) or relationships (connection with a colleague, sharing stories, creating meaningful relationships).
2. Give time
Creating more happiness at work means not spending more money on initiatives and parties. It means slowing down, creating the time to spend with your colleagues or direct reports talking to them. Try scheduling time for a coffee/1:1 chat which is all about them.
The most powerful leader I ever met came into an organisation and spent more than 2 hours individually with each senior leader and asked them about themselves, their personal and professional dreams, their families and how he could help them get there. This created more trust and loyalty than anything else I have ever seen.
3. Prioritisation of work
In our recent survey on the state of happiness at work in the UK we found that workload/too much work was the number one cause of unhappiness in the workplace.
To ensure that teams are not overloaded with work we need to improve organisational prioritisation. This is the responsibility of management to tell colleagues what is the urgent and important work and to give them autonomy and the ability to say no. once your organisation has set their priorities they should also ensure that they are adequately resourced with time, money and most importantly people.
4. Make space for all emotions at work.
Happiness at work is not about creating false or toxic positivity or about being happy at work all the time. Creating a culture of trust, being vulnerable accepting all our emotions is the “cornerstone to resilience, thriving and true authentic happiness”
One of the quickest ways to create more trust and vulnerability in the workplace is through storytelling. Most importantly, have leaders share stories of when they failed, or their mental health struggles. This creates a culture of openness and trust.
5. Connect to your purpose
More and more our younger generations are attracted by making a difference. By contributing to something stronger than themselves. They will happily work for less money for a more meaningful life. And a recent survey in the UK found that they would take up to a 10% pay cut to work for an organisation that prioritised a happy work culture.
Ensure that colleagues at all levels of the organisation are able to connect the work they do with the organisational purpose. Make sure you as an organisation are clear on your purpose, and that it actually means something. If you are lucky to have purpose baked in (like a cancer charity) then you have a head start. But if your organisations purpose is less “grand” you can still be connected. Start by getting people to make a list of all the people their work helps. Connect them to their wider impact.
Are you interested in creating a happier, healthier work environment? Please book a free consultation OR fill in our state of happiness 2022 workplace survey to receive a white paper for the international week of happiness at work