Employee Happiness Should Not Be An Impossible Task
Fortunately or unfortunately, employee engagement is a hot topic.
Don’t get me wrong, engagement is important. There’s a proven link between engagement, productivity and profits. Companies should want to have engaged employees.
It’s virtually impossible to have an engaged employee who isn’t happy. So step one in the engagement formula should be creating happiness at work. This doesn’t mean that everyone will be 100% happy 100% of the time. That’s not realistic. But it’s not unreasonable to strive for more happy days than not happy days.
As an employee, I should be able to tell my employer “With rare exception, I’m happy coming to work.”
The question becomes, what does a company need to do in order to achieve happiness at work? That’s the ultimate philosophical question. You could start by asking people:
Name one thing that makes you happy about working here.
It might sound hokey but think of the list you would have:
- Things your company should keep doing.
- Reasons to tell job applicants and candidates.
- Things to put on your career site, LinkedIn company page or Facebook page.
I also wonder if there would be any surprises. Things companies didn’t realize that employees liked as well as things that didn’t show up on the list. I wonder if something doesn’t show up, should a company consider doing away with it?
When was the last time someone asked “What makes you happy at work?” Do you know the answer?
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