Happiness does have a significant impact on the productivity of
your employees. It’s not just an empty claim. Science says so.
In collaboration with British Telecom, Oxford
University’s Saïd School of Business researched the
influence of happiness on productivity in employees.
The researchers have found that when employees felt happier,
they did their work faster, made more phone calls per hour, and converted more calls
into sales. As a result, researchers reported a 13% increase in productivity.
Work
Environment Is a Large Contributor to Employee Happiness
The above-mentioned study proves that the components of
employee happiness are not entirely connected to personal life or any other
outside-of-work factors. The researchers from Oxford even took into
consideration the possible impact of good and bad weather on employee happiness
and found no connection.
Thus, the Oxford University study proves that employers should
not send their employees seeking for happiness and satisfaction somewhere
outside of their workplace.
The workplace environment and personal life of the employees
are not mutually exclusive and have a significant impact on each other. While
low job satisfaction can have a negative impact on an employee’s personal life,
a positive work environment
can also significantly improve employee’s health and well-being, thus,
contributing to their overall happiness.
Exploring
the Connection Between Employee Happiness and Job Productivity
We now know that the work environment has an effect as
significant as personal life on an employee’s productivity.
But what does low happiness and satisfaction levels can cost
your company?
Harvard Business Review referenced to a study by Queens
School of Business and Gallup Organization,
which found that disengaged workers had:
● 37%
higher absenteeism
● 49%
more work-related accidents
● 60%
more errors
As a result, the organizations, where these employees worked,
after some time had:
● 18%
lower overall productivity
● 16%
lower profitability
● 37%
lower job growth
● 65%
lower share price
According to this study, surveyed companies, depending on the
size, lost from $100,000 to millions of dollars annually on average from low
employee happiness and satisfaction levels.
So, what lies behind employee happiness? What should you do as
an employer to contribute to employee happiness?
Let’s take a look.
1.
Foster the Atmosphere of Respect
Communication at work is the first thing that you need to take
into consideration when it comes to employee happiness.
Unfortunately, whenever there is a disagreement between a
supervisor and an employee and among employees as well, people tend to use a
passive-aggressive approach to dealing with conflict.
Passive-aggressive communication at work can manifest itself in
a variety of ways:
● ignoring
proper direct channels of communication (spreading rumors, using back-handed
compliments and other passive-aggressive comments)
● sabotaging
collaboration and healthy communication
● silent
treatment as well as harsh unnecessary criticism, nitpicking
● complete
refusal to praise employees
Furthermore, praise can also be used in a passive-aggressive
context. For instance, a supervisor can use the achievements of one employee to
shame another employee and their lack of initiative.
That is why the first step on your way to the happiness of your
employees would be getting read of passive-aggressive communication and
focusing more on a respectful attitude. And in case you need to give a negative
comment, do it in a constructive way and offer your solution to the problem.
2. Take Care of Your Employee’s Safety
The second contributing factor is making sure that your
employees feel safe at work. You might think about the physical safety of your
employees right now, but we refer more to safe communication.
While eliminating passive-aggressive attitudes at a workplace
is the first step to communication, based on trust, it still isn’t enough to
get your employees to feel comfortable enough to share, and this is your end
goal.
Trust in a leader
is one of the components of employee happiness and job satisfaction. When a
leader has their employees’ best interest at heart, it motivates the workers to
contribute more.
The research published in
the Organization Science journal showed that employees that
trusted their leader and safely communicated their issues directly, learned
faster, and had better performance.
That’s why trust should be incorporated in the corporate
culture and nurtured from the very beginning. Whenever there is a newcomer in
your company, you should notify them that your workplace environment should
foster empathy and interpersonal kindness, rather than a passive-aggressive
attitude and disregard of others.
3.
Don’t Encourage Working Overtime
The last tip is concerned more with work ethic than with
communication, however, it has a great impact on employee happiness.
There are many companies across the U.S. that have high
turnover. While high turnover is not necessarily a bad thing and can be
connected to seasonal work and high competition in the industry, in most cases
it is caused by overworking and workplace-related stress.
There is a number of high-stress jobs, from insurance advisors
to marketers. “After our first marketing campaign, we had a high turnover,
which prompted us to hire freelance marketers to help our team cope with large
amounts of work,” says Estelle Liotard, senior editor and the head of content
marketing at BestWritingAdvisor,
a writing services review site, sharing her company’s experience dealing with
high turnover.
To help your employees cope with all their tasks within working
hours, you can:
● Reduce the number of daily meetings.
Project status updates, for instance, can be unnecessary, if you use project
management software, available to all your employees.
● Introduce flexible work schedules.
Different people have different high-performance and low-performance times.
Some people work well early in the morning, while others have a performance
boost after 4 p.m.
● Establish an overtime policy.
Overtime work should be an exception rather than a rule. Forcing your employees
to work overtime almost every day can lead to burnout, which inevitably will
have a negative impact on the productivity of your venture.
Your employees may also be forced to work overtime because they
don’t have the right tools and resources to complete their tasks within working
hours. Encourage your employees to share, which tools they require to do their
job best and equip them with everything they need to do their work efficiently.
Wrapping
Up
Science confirms that a happy employee is a productive employee.
Moreover, it is your task as an employer to contribute to their happiness.
Help your employees work smart, not hard, and encourage open
communication in the company, where there is no place for a passive-aggressive
attitude. Nurture honesty and interpersonal kindness, and you will see, how the
productivity of your employees rises through the roof, making your venture a
dream place to work at.
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