Every organization wants (or should want!) its employees to be happy. Research shows that happy employees are more productive and engaged, less stressed, and more loyal. They are more likely to have strong workplace relationships, deliver superior customer service, and even be more creative.
Unhappy employees, on the other hand, are the opposite in all of those respects. They are more likely to miss work, have conflicts with coworkers, and spread their negative attitude about work to others.
So how can employers maximize worker happiness? It’s not about pay and benefits, as Harvard Business Review (HBR) has reported. When it comes to workplace satisfaction, the old adage that “money can’t buy happiness” really does hold true (no matter what Mrs. Howell said). Factors like corporate culture, leadership quality, and advancement opportunities all matter more.
Then what, specifically, can organizations do? There are lots of relatively small ways that enterprises can encourage and support employee happiness, including the following 5 ideas:
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Provide free lunches
Provide free lunches at least monthly, as well as other opportunities for employees to engage socially. A free lunch meets a need (everyone has to eat), encourages remote/hybrid employees to come into the office, and helps build workplace relationships.
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Offer flexibility in scheduling
Offer flexibility in scheduling and work arrangements. As noted here previously, in terms of balancing remote work vs. back-to-the-office approaches, “Study after study identifies flexibility as one of the most critical factors for increasing employee engagement” (and therefore happiness).
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Arrange training opportunities
Arranging training opportunities for employeess is a triple win: employees gain confidence from learning new skills, they become more valuable to your organization because of those new skills, and their work happiness is increased because they appreciate their employer making an investment in them.
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Promote workplace well-being
In our post on how focusing on well-being and workplace relationships helps build high-performing teams, we quoted from the U.S. Surgeon General’s website: “Work affects both our physical and mental well-being. (In recent surveys) 81% of workers reported that they will be looking for workplaces that support mental health in the future.”
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Demonstrate trust
Demonstrate trust in employees. Trusting employees with autonomy in their roles and giving them the freedom to make decisions empowers employees to take ownership of their work. This increases job satisfaction and productivity, and makes them happier because…being trusted feels good. Being micromanaged and constantly watched does not.
But beyond those practices, three BIG ways to impact employee happiness are through strong leadership, gratitude, and giving back. Here’s a deeper dive into those three areas.
To Make Employees Happy, Improve Their Leadership and Guidance
It’s somewhat of a cliché that employees don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses. But quite often, it’s true. As we’ve noted here previously, research shows U.S. companies are facing a crisis of bad leadership, and it’s costing them dearly.
And while there’s no question that some people simply aren’t cut out for management, in many cases, “bad bosses” want to and can do better—they’ve simply never been taught how. Frequently, people are promoted into supervisory roles because of their performance, seniority, or education in their field.
But management and leadership are skills, and as with any other skill, an individual with no (actually helpful) experience or training is likely to struggle when suddenly asked to perform. Fortunately, also as with other skills, the art of influencing others can be taught and learned through professional development workshops and programs.
For new leaders, a program like Developing Emerging Leaders helps develop high-performing individual contributors into managers who achieve organizational objectives through the efforts of others. Over a series of five group sessions, participants address different leadership topics and learn new skills through coaching, exercises, case studies, and peer discussions.
Our virtual Strategic Leadership program takes management skills development to the next level. Over six weeks, participants will dive deeper into goal setting and time management, strategic thinking, and relationship building in three group sessions.
Our DiSC Workshop and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Training help managers and their teams better understand their own strengths and communication preferences through personality assessments.
Building on that knowledge, Emotional Intelligence Training helps participants better understand how to manage emotions effectively, build trust, and encourage open communication. Conflict Resolution Training teaches participants how to manage the inevitable workplace disagreements in a positive way, with respect and professionalism.
Finally, a topic typically not associated with workplace happiness is meetings. Per an HBR article on the subject, “Companies pay a stiff price for badly run meetings. For example…a study of 20 organizations…(found) that dysfunctional meeting behaviors (including wandering off-topic, complaining, and criticizing) were associated with lower levels of market share, innovation, and employment stability. Happiness at work takes a hit too.”
Our one-day Meeting Management Workshop teaches leaders how to prepare for, manage, and wrap up meetings in a way that maximizes communication and collaboration while minimizing wasted time; in short, how to run meetings that, at the least, won’t make employees feel less happy.
To Foster Employee Happiness, Encourage Gratitude
Numerous studies have documented the link between gratitude and happiness. In a recent Fast Company article, physician and writer Richard Gunderman explored the psychological benefits of gratitude, its philosophical and religious roots, and how to increase happiness by making gratitude a habit.
Business leaders can increase employee happiness by modeling gratitude and making it a part of daily work, through a number of different practices:
- Write thank-you notes: Encourage employees to write handwritten thank-you notes to each other. Personal notes of appreciation can have a significant impact and show genuine gratitude.
- Bring it up in meetings: Devote a few minutes of each meeting (as appropriate) for employees to do quick shout-outs to coworkers, thanking them or acknowledging a job well done or extra effort.
- Share positive customer feedback: Favorable ratings, reviews, and comments from customers are ultimately the result of everyone doing their job well. Spread the credit and foster employee pride in the organization by sharing and highlighting this feedback.
Here at Best Corporate Events, for example, we’re proud of our 5-star rating on Trustpilot based on more than 1,100 customer reviews. We track these numbers and regularly share updates across our company to give our people a little positive “bump” for the day. - Recognize and reward employees: Regularly acknowledging and rewarding employee efforts and achievements can boost morale, motivation, and happiness. Implement recognition programs, such as employee of the month awards, performance bonuses, special parking spots, team lunches, and public acknowledgments during meetings.
- Implement peer-to-peer recognition programs: Acknowledgement from coworkers often means as much or more, emotionally, than recognition from leadership. Create peer-to-peer recognition programs where employees can nominate their colleagues for acts of kindness, teamwork, or going above and beyond. Recognition can be shared publicly during meetings and/or via internal communication channels.
- Celebrate employee milestones: Celebrate work anniversaries, birthdays, and personal milestones with personalized messages or small tokens of appreciation. Acknowledging these moments shows employees they are valued beyond their professional contributions.
- Create a gratitude wall: Setting up a digital gratitude board in Slack or other collaboration tools is an easy way to enable acknowledgment from coworkers. But consider making this even more powerful with a physical wall of corkboard with push-pins and paper. Those thank-you notes recommended above? This is a great place to temporarily display those, keeping the wall constantly updated.
To Keep Employees Happy, Provide Opportunities to Give Back
The opening section of this post noted the adage, “Money can’t buy happiness.” It turns out that’s not just folk wisdom. Psychological studies show that “there is no straightforward relationship between wealth and well-being…and that even extremely rich people – such as billionaires – are not significantly happier than others.”
What does make people happy, though is giving. “While possessing wealth and material goods doesn’t lead to happiness, giving them away actually does. Generosity is strongly associated with well-being…Studies of people who practice volunteering have shown that they have better psychological and mental health and increased longevity. The benefits of volunteering have been found to be greater than taking up exercise, attending religious services, even greater than giving up smoking.”
So, another way to make and keep employees happy is to give them opportunities to give to their communities, whether through direct financial support or organized volunteering to benefit worthy causes.
Our post on why companies need corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs detailed how these programs benefit companies, their employees, and their communities alike. For employees, participating in structured CSR events increases engagement and loyalty; strengthens workplace relationships through emotionally powerful shared experiences; and increases gratitude and happiness. Taking part in a program to help the homeless, hungry, veterans, people with mobility issues, or kids in need puts minor work frustrations into perspective.
There are a wide variety of charitable CSR team building activities to help these groups and others. A few examples include:
- Bike Build Donation®: In our signature program, teams complete iPad challenges to earn parts and tools, then assemble bicycles for donations to a local charity or children’s organization.
- Build-a-Guitar®: Learning to play music can have a powerful, positive impact on young people. After completing challenges to earn the parts, teams assemble electric guitars and kits complete with a tuner, carrying case, audio cable, guitar strap, picks, and a personal amplifier. Once participants test out the finished guitars (and show off their musical talents), the guitars and kits are donated to a local school or non-profit. Or, your organization can kick it up a notch with a Build-a-Band™ event, which adds bass guitars and drum sets to the mix.
- Cancer Comfort Care Packs: In this meaningful CSR program, groups navigate through a series of engaging activities leading up to assembling care packages for patients undergoing chemotherapy or other treatments. Care package items are chosen based on the specific needs of cancer patients, such as lotion to soothe dry skin, mouth rinses and candies to alleviate dry mouth and combat nausea, and puzzles and games to keep the mind occupied during treatments.
- Hydroponics for Hunger: Address sustainability, food insecurity, and financial need all in one program. Teams complete challenges and then assemble hydroponic (soil-free) gardening kits that enable community organizations and individuals to grow healthy vegetables and herbs virtually anywhere, even in tight urban spaces.
- Putting for Pets: This is a fun CSR event in which teams design unique mini-golf holes using packaged pet food and supplies. After the course is assembled and the participants play a round, the items are repackaged for donation to local pet shelters or rescue organizations.
What Are Three Main Ways to Keep Employees Happy
Three big ways that organizations can increase happiness — and ultimately, business performance — are:
- Improve the quality and effectiveness of their leadership through training;
- Implement activities to promote gratitude in the workplace
- Provide employees with opportunities to give back to their communities through CSR programs.
Having happy employees brings many benefits for employers. Happy workers are more productive, engaged, loyal, and deliver better customer experiences. They are less likely to miss time from work and more likely to recommend the organization to others.
Employers can adopt many practices to help increase employee happiness, from free lunches to offering flexible work arrangements and training opportunities.
To get started creating a workplace culture that will keep your employees happy at work, contact Best Corporate Events.
