Happiness at work: it's more than meditation, a ping-pong table or a high salary
A lot has been talked about happiness at work in recent years. But what exactly is happiness at work? Employees who walk around smiling all the time, meditating to find inspiration, receiving a fat salary and getting together for a drink on a Friday?
Although some people associate this with woo-woo thinking, happiness at work is a respected term in positive psychology. This movement focuses on people's potential rather than their limitations. Or as founder Martin Seligman puts it: "Instead of spending your time looking at what is not going well, you shift your attention to what is going well and which factors can improve people's capacities."
Scientifically proven effects of being happier at work
This pays, practice has shown. Because those who are able to increase the happiness of their employees at work have been shown to create employees who are more productive, more creative and more innovative (Morgan, 2017). Other benefits of being happier at work? Happy employees are more resilient when faced with change and stress, more committed, healthier (so sick less often), more customer-friendly and work better together. It is logical that organisations with a high level of happiness at work earn higher revenues and profits.
Want employees who are happier at work? Influence their behaviour
Can you, as a manager, actually create more of this happiness at work that increases profits in your employees? Yes, of course you can. Research has shown that 40% of the level of happiness at work is influenced by the behaviour of your employee. As a manager, you can of course have a positive influence on that behaviour. In order to be sure to encourage the right behaviour it is important to be aware what makes people feel happy at work. The scientifically-based PERMA model offers five factors that specifically influence how happy people feel at work.
The five happiness factors that make people happier at work
The PERMA model defines the following five happiness factors, which we explain below:
P: Positive emotions
E: Engagement (commitment)
R: Relationships
M: Meaning
A: Accomplishment (success)
Positive emotions: this is about your employees feeling good, and the inspiration that they draw from the things that they do. Think of positive emotions as meaning: laughing, having fun, enjoying, being yourself, satisfaction and optimism, but also giving and receiving appreciation and thanks.
Positive emotions are just one component of happiness at work. While emotions like laughter and fun are relatively fleeting, happiness is more a long-term feeling. That is why it is important that your focus on positive emotions should be continuous and designed to last.
As a manager, it is therefore important to make use of your employees' qualities, give them enough challenges, encourage them to develop themselves and give them autonomy (self-management) in their work.
Relations: speaks to the link between you and your colleagues. Humans are social animals and strong relationships prove this. Social connection, interaction and closeness help to create a feeling of happiness at work. In addition, good connections with colleagues ensure that support is available during bad times. Did you know that someone being absent or not due to long-term stress is more strongly correlated to (a lack of) support from managers and colleagues than to the pressure of work?
So, as a manager, focus on your people, initiate the interaction, make sure that they are involved, etc. In a nutshell: build relationships and maintain them!
Meaning: is the level to which people feel that their work does something useful and the extent to which it makes a contribution. What is the impact of their work on their goals, those of the organisation and those of the world? Having meaningful work will mean more pleasure in the work.
Therefore you need to make sure that your employees know where they are making a contribution, that you know their standards and values and whether these fit with the organisation and vice versa. As a manager, make sure that employees feel important in their work.
Accomplishment (success): speaks to a person's ambition. Where do people want to get to, what do they want to achieve? And you, as a manager or from your employees. Where do you want to go, and where do your employees want to go? What do they want to achieve? Achieving these goals and celebrating successes is important in keeping work enjoyable.Encourage your employees above all to set targets. Don't ever set the bar too high for these. Make sure that people feel their goals are realistic and achievable, maybe help them to break down the path to achieving them into smaller steps. Reached the goal? Take time out to savour the success. Also remember all the other goals that preceded this one, something that often gets forgotten. Success is like an iceberg, only the tip is visible. All the efforts, mishaps and disappointments also form part of it, and really just make coming through them and winning all the sweeter. Be proud of your team and yourself. Encourage your team to proud of themselves too.
Want to make your employees feel happier at work? Some detailed tips
Would you, as a manager, like to make your employees feel happier in their work? You can apply the following two tips straight away to have a positive effect on your own behaviour and that of your employees.
Tips
- A direct compliment or a spontaneous word of appreciation may seem like a small gesture, but if you write it on a card and place it on their desk, or even send it in the mail, it will have an effect. It helps to raise morale at work. Specially for the visitors to this platform, we have created a set of happy at work cards to send to your employees. Order the set by sending an email to communicatie@mensely.nl with your name and address details and we will send you the set!
- Celebrate your successes together. Who does not enjoy having a bottle of bubbly cracked open when they have got a major order signed? Or being publicly congratulated if a customer says how satisfied they are. You can have a fixed time for pats on the back (such as the Friday lunchtime spell down the pub or the weekly team meeting) or do it on-the-spot whenever a success is achieved. So long as you do it.
- Help employees to set concrete achievable goals, so that you can celebrate successes more often. Nothing is quite as demotivating as working really hard without actually reaching your goals. That is why many (agile) organisations will work in maybe 2 week sprints: one big goal is broken down into smaller, detailed stages that are achieved more rapidly. Every stage brings you one step closer each time to the final goal, so pause and savour it (see tip 2).
- For many people in large organisations it is difficult to relate their own work to the big goal of the whole organisation. So talk to your team about the (inspiring) vision of your organisation and discuss how you can contribute to it. Looking for inspiration? In the video, a cleaner at NASA tells J.F. Kennedy that he made a contribution to putting a man on the moon.
- Phone your team members now and again spontaneously, just to talk informally like you used to round the coffee machine or water cooler. Because, as IKEA put it: Attention makes everything more beautiful. Ask your employees which bits of their work make them happy. Challenge them to think of ways that will increase their enjoyment of their work, to be creative and out-of-the-box.
These articles might also be of interest:
Tips for setting goals, as a manager, for yourself, your team and your employees
If you just get in a car and drive, without deciding where you want to get to, you will never arrive where you want to be. In other words: goal-setting is important. But how can you, as a manager, set the correct goals for yourself, your team and its individual members? Read the tips from Joost Leenders, co-owner of the Talent Academy Group and performance coach for, among others, Ajax, the Jumbo-Visma cycling team and the Dutch national men's hockey team.
Read moreHow do you get employees who are fit for work long-term?
Thanks to the ageing population and raising the pensionable age, employees have to keep working for longer. You will often hear people say that this makes long-term fitness for work more important than ever. But what exactly does it mean for an employee to be "fit for work long-term"? And what is your role in this as a manager?
Read moreKeeping yourself and your team balanced, especially when times are hectic
There are many books devoted to balance. We all know by now just how important it is. However, how do you make sure you stay in balance at a time when there is constant pressure to deliver? How do you as manager maintain your own balance and that of your colleagues? Sanne van Paassen, former top sportswoman and peak performance coach gives us some tips.
Read more