On average, we spend in the UK, in excess of 40 hours, paid and unpaid hours at work each week. So it's fundamental to ensure our work environment is a happy one.
Let's face it, as an employee, if you're not happy, it's going to have a significant impact on your everyday life and well being and as an employer, having unhappy employees is going to impact the productivity of your business and your own time potentially dealing with excessive staffing issues caused by disgruntled under performing employees. So a happy environment is clearly key for all.
Research indicates happy employees are better employees and the shift in the generations in the workplace is placing ever growing emphasis on ensuring happiness is high on the agenda. Recent Surveys from Robert Half, Gallup and Horizons Workforce Consulting back this up by confirming that :-
Happy Employees are more Productive
Happy Employees are more resilient, committed and loyal
Happy Employees are healthier
But, what makes for a happy work environment ?
Here's 7 Key Steps we have identified which contribute to this.
Firstly, create a clear and accurate message of what the role entails as we advised in the Job specification article to greatly reduce the risk that the selected candidate ends up feeling surprised, let down or disappointed once they take on the role. Have skilled interviewers conduct in-depth and relevant interviews, something we have covered previously in earlier blogs, thoroughly check references and do the psychometric testing when appropriate.
Getting the right people in place to start with is vital because if you recruit the wrong people, happiness falls flat very quickly and the other steps we discuss below can become somewhat futile. So, take time to get this stage accurate and working for you.
Periodically, take the time to listen to what your team want, whether their skills are being utilised effectively and what their individual and collective aspirations for the future are. This will inevitably improve buy in, reduce the risk of employees leaving and allow you to address any issues that may occur as the employer, early in the process before they become significant and potentially damaging. Common sense? Yes, but frequently overlooked in busy work environments.
Empowering your Staff to have responsibility in the decision making process has proved hugely beneficial in several ways.
Well know writer Daniel Pink has suggested 5 minute weekly one on ones with all staff and "genius" hours which allow employees to spend an hour each week thinking of new ideas. Whether that be changing a process within their role or a suggestion which could benefit the organisation as a whole.
The benefits of employee empowerment are twofold:
It allows them to develop their skills and feel more invested in the role as valued and key people in the decision making process of the business.
Dr Christian Carter has described how "fostering positive emotions through gratitude is easy and powerful." Makes sense, we all like constructive feedback and delivered in a productive, constructive manner is proven to have significant impact upon employees. A simple "Thankyou for that report it really helps me" or "Guys, you've really worked hard this week to meet the deadline , thankyou" can go a long way.
This is a key driver for employees and particularly within the millennial age group if you remember from our earlier blog. They want to understand the corporate vision and how they can and do contribute to it.
Workers who are happy within their roles, tend to have a clear understanding of the importance of the tasks they perform at all times and how they relate to the bigger company objective. So relaying this to them and explaining how they contribute to the overall success of the business is seen as vital, particularly within smaller organisations where this can be seen as a very powerful tool. The benefits are often seen in times of varied individual workload or when economic factors impact the organisation.
This is an extremely powerful factor in happiness at work. Owners and managers principally set the tone here by creating a welcoming, friendly environment that provides opportunity for positive social interaction between employees, teams and divisions both within work related times and outside of these as well.
Positive managerial attitudes feed down and combined with events such as team huddles, team goals, team lunches, away days, quiz nights. It should hopefully foster, providing you have the on boarding right, employees to have friends within the workplace which will nurture as individuals a sense of happiness and positivity with their workplace.
Very few of us work for the fun of it, so the need to have a suitable remuneration package and a structure in place for development is critical in ensuring the well being of employees. This may be supplemented depending on your work environment by incentivised payments from individual or team targets set around personal performance. Additionally, there is an increasing trend amongst employees to place considerable value on other non financial benefits such as flexible working hours, early finishes and discounted store and online benefit cards such as perk box.
At Lucy Walker Recruitment, we have been supporting the growth of organisations across the north of England to build high-performing commercial teams through a range of recruitment solutions and products, for over 30 years.
To find out more call us on Leeds 0113 367 2880 or contact us here. You can check out some of our client testimonials here.