4 Ways To Increase Employee Happiness
Being a manager comes with a lot of duties and responsibilities. So many managers are tasked with an extremely busy schedule and are still held accountable for the productivity of their employees. That also means employee happiness.
Although many leaders think they’re doing a great job at managing their employees, the majority of the population might suggest something different.
A lack of happiness in the workplace is a growing trend with multiple causes. Poor management that promotes minimal communication, a lack of a sense of belonging, and creating negative competition are common causes.
Employees that feel unhappy are less likely to be creative, communicate, and most importantly- be productive. So what should you be doing to keep your employees happy? Here are 4 things you can do to increase employee happiness:
Communicate
Staying locked up in your office, and considering yourself too busy is easy to do. It’s also toxic.
Having an open communication policy is something that is easily overlooked by managers. Open communication allows your employees to feel more comfortable sharing ideas, feedback, and expressing themselves freely.
When proper communication is implemented in the workplace, employees share and spread positive ideas. When multiple minds come together, they work stronger and more efficiently than by themselves. This eliminates negative competition, and brings employees together.
Additionally, it’s important to keep an open door. An open door doesn’t necessarily mean your door is physically open 24/7 (although it could help). It means always being readily available to listen, and engage with your employees when they need you. Once your employees feel like they can openly communicate with you, bonds of trust will begin to form.
Monkey see, monkey do.
Practice Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize your own emotions, and the emotions of others. Falling under the category of communication, emotional intelligence is communicating with a purpose.
Truly understanding the needs of your employees, and reacting accordingly will help build those solid trust bonds, and show that you’re a strong, positive leader in stressful situations.
Reacting positively to your employees includes:
Keeping calm in stressful situations
Understanding where your employees come from (emotionally)
Actively listening to their feedback
Finding a solution that works for both you, and your employee
Practice keeping an open mind, and maintaining patience. If you “come from contribution,” emotional intelligence will naturally take place over time and you are more likely to achieve employee happiness.
Leverage Personality
Starting to understand your employees personality should come as early as their hiring. Although humans are a very adaptive species, we work well in environments that naturally fit to how we think.
Putting someone where they feel less comfortable will limit creativity. This will lead to stress and unhappiness.
If you’re hiring an assistant, you want to find someone who has an organizational mindset. When you use someone who doesn’t have great organizational skills for that job, they’ll have a hard time and be unhappy. You’ll be unhappy with what they’re doing and production will diminish.
As your employees begin to feel more comfortable with you as a manager and the open communication policies are working, personalities will begin to become more prominent.
It’s your job to leverage their personalities to magnify their strengths, and pair your employees together with personalities that work well with each other. This not only benefits your employees happiness, it also improves productivity.
Employees, Friends, Family
Being a manager doesn’t give you the ‘hat’ of being the ruler. It’s your job to keep your employees productive, and you need to remember that treating your employees kindly should always come first.
As a manager and leader, your employees are like your family. Naturally, you don’t want to see your family members or friends fail. You try to encourage them and help give them the proper support they need to succeed.
So what’s the difference for your employees? If you believe in, and passionately drive your employees toward success it will be evident, and it will be contagious.
If you don’t feel the need to care for your employees and take the time to help them achieve what they’re meant to do, maybe it’s time to consider a different position.
Putting employee happiness first is one of the best moves any leader can do. Employees are driven by emotion, even more so than money based incentives. Treat your employees first. Creating happiness is a free, invaluable resource that leads to a successful business, and more happiness in the workplace