5 tips to create a happy workplace

A student of International Business Yana Petrova makes a guest appearance on our blog with 5 tips to create a happy workplace:

Sometime in the 19^th century, an English factory owner called Robert Owen laid the foundation of a system named “welfare at work”. The system is intended to improve both social and working conditions for the workers.

Likewise, he had raised the demand for an 8-hour working day and created the slogan “8 hours labor, 8 hours recreation, 8 hours full rest”. This man was ahead of his time and his efforts to improve the well-being, health, and education at the workplace are relevant today, and even better, they evolved into systems used to promote good management and worker relations, increase productivity, and prevent worker conflict and unionization.

Isn’t it fascinating that back in 1800, this extraordinary person and father of British Socialism realized, that the happier your employees are, the more successful your company?

Based on his legacy, we have summarized 5 relevant tips to help you create a happier workplace nowadays.

Tip number 1 – Develop a Corporate Culture

Corporate or organizational culture has strategic importance for the successful development of the organization as well as for the HR policies and activities in it. The corporate culture consists of values, which refer to beliefs, and norms which refer to behavioral rules. This pattern is causally related to employee’s behavior and attitude towards the work process.

When companies are facing collapse or interference, the bond between identity, image, and culture shifts. In this case, especially important is the factor of communication. Culture expresses the “we-feeling” in one organization. If an employee works in a positive and supportive environment, if there is clear and transparent communication, employees will be motivated to perform their job well and will strive to reach both their individual goals and the company’s goals overall.

“We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.”
– Bill Gates

Tip number 2 – Provide Feedback

Giving feedback is a skill that takes practice to get it right. Provided in the right way feedback can lead to exceptional results. To be effective, it needs to be given up, down, and sideways. Feedback is a complex process, which measures an individual’s behavior from different prospects with the help of questionnaires, data processing, and ratings. It gives an outlook to people’s performance, and an indication about how others understand the individual’s actions, it increases the realization for development as well. The key to effective feedback? Consistency and frequency.

Tip number 3 – Launch an Individual Development Plan

Personal development is a key aspect when talking about growth, fulfillment, and job satisfaction. Personal development is a need that helps to gain knowledge and skills in order to improve. It helps to determine effective interpersonal relationships and promotes productive teams, as well as accommodates innovative and active organization.

What a company can do is to require a creation of own personal development plan from its employees. For example, setting three personal and professional goals by each employee (individually or in teams) that need to be achieved in a certain period. Once the goals are set, both managers and employees can start working on them. This will give a feeling of appreciation for both sides.

Tip number 4 – Employee Experience

Employer experience begins with the application process and it ends with the exit interview. It encompasses the entire journey of the employee when associating with an organization. Therefore, there are few strategies that a company can implement to improve the employee experience.

• Pay attention to the environment – cultural, technical, or physical
• Ease and simplify the application process – designing the process in a way that is informative and simple to follow is one more step to the preferred employer and the good employer reputation
• Create an effective onboarding process – building an onboarding program helps the employee to get acquainted with the work environment, to connect with its colleagues, and familiarize with the company’s culture and values
• Providing a mentor is an effective way to understand the nature of work and enter faster into the work process. It is a way to create good relationship, to clear the communication, and even to exchange ideas and suggestions.

Read more about our employees’ journeys in Uratarinoita on HAMK website.

Tip number 5 – Avoid Micromanaging, Build Trust, and Provide Freedom Instead

Happy employees and micromanaging are two incompatible things. Employees who are trusted are more relaxed and confident in their performance. If employees feel that they are under control and do not have the freedom to express themselves, this can lead to a stressful working environment and it can lower their creativity and desire to perform. Independent employees are happy employees, because they set their own rhythm, and put more effort and time to reach the goal.

In conclusion

Today, people still experience boredom, stress, demotivation, or even underestimation at their workplaces. Therefore, happiness at the workplace is considered to be the same as happiness in life – a basic human need, something that we all are aiming for. And among all perks that an employee can get, happiness is the biggest reward a workplace can offer, because happiness is when you love your job!