Happiness at work - 5 tips to try today!

Everybody, it would seem, is getting into happiness at work. This is really great! I’ve been preaching the happiness at work schtick for a while now, ably assisted by Ollie, and inspired by the likes of Alex Kjerulf, Ricardo Semler, Penelope Trunk and others. I truly believe that I can go and sit down with my boss and say to him categorically – "if the people who work here are happy people they’ll be more productive". I believe fundamentally in the cause and effect of increased happiness leading to increased motivation and productivity.

So it’s really good to see others taking up the happiness at work message too. Via Louise Triance comes a service from Jobsite that assesses people’s level of happiness and recommends changing jobs to increase overall happiness if there is a shortfall. Whilst the sell is obvious (I’d expect that Jobsite have more to gain if their surveys suggest unhappiness in most participants) it’s nice to see an organisation in the recruitment marketplace embracing the idea that work is not just somewhere you turn up for 8+ hours a day, but that instead it’s somewhere you actually can go to be happy.

Happiness at work is a vital element of the organic growth of an organisation. If a company wants to retain talented staff in this new business environment, then employee satisfaction levels need to be high. Sure, this means paying the right salary and providing the right financial incentives, because pretty much everyone has to pay the bills. But it’s inherently more than that too. As I’ve said before (and will keep saying over and over) it’s about engagement above and beyond the normal “I need a job to keep a roof over my head and feed my kids” concept. It’s about creating an environment where people are so happy that they’d do anything to keep the company going. Those people who really ‘love’ the company, i.e. are completely emotionally engaged with it, will work their behinds off to see it succeed. They’ll also pull out all the stops in times of strife just to get through the bad patch (these are the crazies who’d do the work even if no one paid them to!)

Now you might sit here reading this and thinking “yeah, that’s all very well in another company, but in ours where we’re just making widgets day in day out, who’s going to be that passionate about working for us?” Fair point, in essence. It’s a common notion that we can’t all be Google, with a raft of cool people, eager to sign up. Like many common notions though, it’s complete and utter BS.

You’re worried because you’re not making uber-sexy products, or you’re worried that it’s just too tough to get your warehouse staff excited about stacking boxes right? Well worry no more. Happiness at work can apply to everyone. Call centres (notoriously high attrition rates) can be happy places. Production lines can be happy places. Banks and leisure centres and council buildings and hospitals and schools and compliance units and McDonalds and everywhere else can be happy workplaces! It’s about doing some basic things right. Here’s 5 to try straight away:

1) Take a look at the working environment first. It should be as bright, fun, pleasant and conducive to work as possible. If it’s drab, dirty and dull then change it. A couple of K spent doing this will be recouped in productivity easily.

2) Train your managers to be happy people and to encourage happy people. Every manager that thinks that screaming, shouting and generally acting like a delinquent 13 year old is good ‘people management’ either needs to get a lobotomy or get a new job. No exceptions here. If you’re in any doubt go read Wally Bock’s blog. The number one impediment to happiness at work isn’t people's boring jobs, it’s crappy management.

3) With a nice place to work and happy managers who are encouraged to make their teams happy, you should start to see an improvement straight away. When this happens, capitalise on it! Address any issues with salary, bonuses and the like here to avoid any potential lingering problems. Then hit the next big one, holidays…

4) Some places get holiday allowances spot on. In the US this is rare (holiday entitlement really sucks over there). Here in the UK we’re a lot better at it. Better, but not always good. Here’s the thing though – giving people more holiday truly costs you nothing. You can harp on to me about lost man hours with people off on their jollies and so on but this is the place where I get a little tetchy and tell you to shut up I’m afraid. If you give people plenty of holiday you allow them the time to chill and relax, get their heads straight and come back to you an even better employee than they went away as. You should really embrace the idea of ‘work-life balance’. By doing that you'll make your money back in increased productivity. If you work your people into the ground though, then you can expect crap morale, poor standards of work and high attrition.
If you’re struggling with this concept at all, here’s a base level that you should be working to. Copy it verbatim if necessary. Minimum – 25 holiday days for everybody in the company as standard. This excludes public holidays, Bank Holidays etc. On top of that, everyone will earn 1 extra day per year of service. If you need to put a maximum figure in, make it 35 days (although if you’re brave enough my preference is to have no maximum because if someone stays with you in this day and age for 20+ years they deserve all the holiday they can take and they'll be one of your best people no matter how much time they have off).

5) OK, holiday rant over, here’s the final tip. When you’ve done all of the above it’s time to start listening to your people. Where you can, democratise your workplace. People’s inability to affect their surroundings and environment is one of the biggest causes of unhappiness at work. So listen to your people. Give them freedom and autonomy where you can. Basically treat them like adults. They will repay you with productivity, loyalty, evangelism, initiative, innovation and more. The best example is the customer service person who is empowered by the company to do the right thing by the customer even if it goes against what might be seen as ‘policy’. Giving your frontline people the discretion to use their knowledge, judgement and integrity to solve a problem means problems will actually get solved. Say to your frontline people – “if you see a problem that can be fixed and will cost the company up to (insert figure here dependant on circumstances, £10, £50, £250...whatever fits), then fix it yourself. Tell your manager about it after.”

This empowerment is a wonderful thing. Your people are aching to challenge themselves and do the best work they can; you must truly believe that. The reason they don’t demonstrate it now is because they’re probably unhappy. I know it sounds harsh but if you’re the boss that’s your fault, not theirs. Treat them right and they will treat you right. Make them happy and I guarantee they’ll make you very happy (and rich, if that’s your bag).

These are very basic starting points. If any of them speak to you at all though then I’m a very happy camper. I’d recommend getting copies of Alex’s book immediately and giving them to everyone you work with (particularly your managers). On top of that read Semler’s book about how he democratised his company. It’s inspiring reading, but filled with takeaways for the average business to implement themselves.

I’m passionate about happiness at work and believe in time it’ll be the norm. Whilst it’s not though (as I said above, we’re getting there slowly), why not try climbing on the cutting edge of the movement and seeing how it feels. You’ll be in very good company and the place will be packed soon enough. In fact your business might just depend on it...

(Note- this post was written mainly in the direction of managers, business leaders, MDs, owners, HR and the like. If you’re not one of those people but are still interested in happiness at work and perhaps how you can make yourself happy, Alex is definitely the expert. Read his blog and buy his book. I’ll be posting about it myself too in the future, so rock on back regularly and you won’t be disappointed.)