A happy employee is a productive employee. Studies have shown that happy people are more
successful generally, experience increased employee satisfaction,
earn higher pay throughout a career, and exhibit enhanced job performance.
Specifically, research shows that compared to unhappy
employees, those who are happy at work are:
·
Twice as productive;
·
Stay 5 times longer with an employer;
·
Are 6 times more energized;
·
Use 10 times less sick leave;
·
Are helpful to colleagues 33% more of the time;
·
Achieving 31% more of their goals;
·
Are 36% more motivated than their colleagues;
and
·
Raise performance issues 46% more often.
Sounds like a manager’s dream!
So, what must leaders do to create “happier” (and more productive) workplaces? The answers are simple and not necessarily
easy.
1. Help Employees Use Their Strengths;
Don’t Focus on Weaknesses.
To create happier places for employees, help them focus on their strengths. (This is good advice for yourself, too.) Now, this seems a bit odd, since you’ve
probably believed that bolstering weaknesses would make people “better”. Although it might be counterintuitive, the
research is clear.
In a psychological study, bowlers were divided into groups. After receiving instructions, the groups
practiced bowling. Some groups were videotaped; others were not. Of those videotaped, one group saw only
positive things they did, and the other group saw only the negative. Those who saw only the positive improved
significantly over the rest of the bowlers (videotaped and not). Among the most unskilled bowlers, those who
saw only the positive videotapes improved significantly more than anyone
(Cooperrider, 1990). (Having second
thoughts on how your company does performance evaluations and give feedback in
general?)
What do I mean by a “strength”?
I don’t mean simply the activities and skills employees are good at,
although that’s a start. Marcus
Buckingham takes “strengths” a step further when he says that strengths are the
things that you are good at AND in which you lose yourself while doing them AND
that energize you.
Have you ever been working on a project at home or work and looked
up to see that much more time had passed than you realized? Maybe you spent an evening dancing with
friends, writing, painting, listening to others tell their stories . . . if the
time passed quickly and you felt energized after doing it, you were in what is
known as “flow”, and that activity could be a strength for you.
You can facilitate the process of employees discovering their
strengths with resources, including Strengths
Finder, Strengths
Based Leadership and Buckingham’s own Stand Out.
Once an employee determines her strengths, help her find ways to
do more work activities that them. Build
more of activities that use her strengths into the job or encourage an employee
to apply for another job in your company that could incorporate more of her
strengths.
So, while maintaining an adequate level of competence at something
that isn’t a strength is usually required on the job, employees are better
served (and by extrapolation so is the company) if they can do more work
activities that showcase their strengths and get more feedback about how they
are doing with respect to their strengths.
2. Create a Sense
of Belonging and Contribution
So, what type of work environment leads to happiness at
work? According to the iOpener Institute for People and Performance,
happy employees reported a stronger correlation with the 5 C’s:
Contribution
– feeling your efforts make a difference
Conviction –
short-term motivation
Culture
– feeling you “fit in” at work
Commitment –
long-term engagement
Confidence –
belief in your own abilities
Thus, if employees do not perceive they are making a
difference, fit in, or are having impact, chances are they are not happy. And if they are not happy, they are not as
productive as they could be. These
themes are echoed in the Gallup
Organization’s Q12.
One way to increase employees’ sense of belonging and
contribution is to allow them to use their strengths as noted above, which
allows employees the opportunity to do what they do best, let’s employees know
you care about them as a person, gives you the opportunity to talk about their
progress at work, and lets them know you care about their skill and career
development.
3. Cross the Losada Line
The final tip to creating more happiness at work rests squarely on
the shoulders of those in charge. To
increase happiness and productivity at work, count the ratio of positive to
negative interaction you have with your employees. According to research by Marcial Losada,
supervisors need to have more positive interactions than negative ones with
their employees. Specifically, a
phenomenon known as the “Losada Line” says you must have 2.9013 positive
interactions to every negative interaction you’re your employees to make your
team moderately successful. To lead
teams to their very best work, you need to raise that ratio to 6 to 1! (Losada,
1999). How many positive interactions or
communications have you given your employees or received from your manager lately? See. Not as easy as it sounds . . . especially if
your motto has been “no news is good news”.
What small thing can you start doing today that will increase your
employees’ happiness at work?
