What Happiness Means For You and Your Employer

When your alarm goes off at 6am every morning are you thinking, “Ohhh, boy..” Or, “Ahhh, yeah!” ?

In a Gallup poll including over 25 million employees in 189 countries reported only 13% of employees are engaged in what they do on a daily basis.The average American working full-time puts in roughly 1,700 hours a year; and happiness could and SHOULD be a big part of the day! Laura Kubzansky, professor of social and behavioral sciences at Harvard School of Public Health found a connection between physical health and psychological well-being. A happy environment is a healthy and productive environment. Watch out for these signs of unhealthy and unproductive workers:

Disgruntled Employees

Angry, “pissed off” workers can tear down a team as well as company brand. Joe Folkman, president of leadership development for the Zenger Folkman firm, describes employees with poor attitude issues have the ability to create more negative workers in the office, cause potential hires to steer clear of the company and alienate clients. Dissatisfied employees often point to poor leadership as the cause. When leaders of an office play favorites or pay attention to certain employees, it builds resentment and frustration throughout the office. Other causes of disgruntled employees may be poor compensation, a mismatch of skills and job position, lack of training or advancement, or office bullying.

Creating Positive Environments

Psychologist and author, Noelle Nelson, Ph.D., is an expert in creating happy employees for a better workplace. “It takes a nanosecond when you walk down the hall to glance at someone and offer a pleasant expression,” says Nelson. Generous expressions toward others can display care when someone is having a rotten day. A simple smile can flip a mood and alter the work someone is doing for a company. If you have the power to do or say something nice for someone, why NOT do it?

Employee engagement survey provider Herd Wisdom suggests taking members from one department and having them shadow another to gain ideas and inspiration to better the professional development across the board. Another performance building tactic provided by the Herd Wisdom blog is having team members contribute to large and small projects. People like to see their ideas praised and growing. By encouraging employee engagement, the productivity increase will take care of itself. By creating opportunities for employees to focus on projects other than their everyday activities, you expand their professional horizons and build investment into overall company goals.

How Happy Creates Money

TinypulseHR contributing writer, Laura Troyani, says only one out of four employees feel fully recognized– this greatly impacts the happiness of employees. Those who are happy are less likely to become ill. A recent study, presented by The Chief Happiness Officer, says 21,290 female nurses in the US noted patients being housed for illnesses were mainly unhappy employees.

Happy employees are more likely to make better decisions and less mistakes. Gallup researcher James Harter found business unit sales depend on moves made by employees. As mentioned before, if you’re a leader of an angry team, you’re more likely to lose clients due to employee behavior and therefore cause downfall in clients.

Happy people tend to be more motivated. Maintaining happy motivation also solely depends on the environment created by management and team members. A study performed by Gallup suggests 60-80% of workers are unmotivated and feel no loyalty toward the company they work for. A lot of this is caused by the threatening management motivation. Alexander Kjerluf, founder of Woohoo inc. says there are four types of management motivation.

1. Intrinsic- When you want to do something
2. Extrinsic- When somebody else tries to make you do something
3. Positive- When you have goals to complete tasks
4. Negative- Something you have to desire to do

Kjerluf says most managers only practice the negative, extrinsic motivation because it’s easier and employees are more likely to do something when their job is at risk.
Being mindful of maintaining a positive environment begins at the top of the pyramid with management teams and the productivity rates will follow close behind. Happy managers will create happy employees and satisfied clients to follow.

The Branchers

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