In our last blog we talked about the key elements of happiness in the workplace:
Purpose
Autonomy
Engagement
Impact
Systematically nurturing these elements builds an environment where people enjoy coming to work. The positivity that results infuses energy into the culture resulting in higher productivity. Definitely a win-win situation for both employers and employees.
The way you go about designing a happier work environment requires a deep understanding of your culture. What resonates with your employees needs to be aligned with your values, vision and mission. There is no “off the shelf” solution that will fit all companies. Like other management decisions, it may require some out of the box thinking to truly fit the company’s needs.
What is necessary to support a positive culture has to evolve over time. For example, bringing in coffee and donuts to your start up company with 6 employees may be all that is needed to spark a cohesive environment. When the company grows to 50 employees, establishing connections may take more structure and imagination.
So where do you begin? How do you intentionally design for happiness?
We have a checklist based on a tool developed at the Stanford Business School and our own experience with clients. These questions are designed around each of the elements of workplace happiness. Answering these questions will give you a starting point to assess where your policies and procedures support happiness and where they can be improved.
Purpose:
Do employees understand the values, vision and mission of the company?
Are each employee’s roles and responsibilities tied to the values, vision and mission?
Are employees able to articulate why their role is important to the goals of the organization?
Autonomy
Do employees feel they have input/control of their career path?
Are roles and responsibilities clearly defined?
Do employees understand their decision making power and where they can get help if they need it?
Engagement
Do employees have the opportunity to communicate and collaborate?
How does the company foster social connections, especially those of work-related teams?
Does the type of social engagement take into account differing work environments (i.e. virtual, in person, office worker, field worker, etc)?
Impact
Do employees have all of the resources necessary to be successful in their position?
How does leadership demonstrate that they value their employee’s work?
What measures are available to employees to assess the impact of their work?
These tools will help nurture a culture that supports the pillars of workplace happiness. These efforts need to be balanced with actions that support your individual job satisfaction.
Check out our next blog for tools to assess personal work happiness.
Image credit: Vinicius "amnx" Amano
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