3 secrets to improve employee happiness

March 25, 2019

In areas marked by increased absences from stress and burnout, happiness at work has never been such an important goal for employers. Indeed, if you want to succeed, the happiness of your employees is essential.

You think you have no influence on the level of happiness of your employees? Think again!

Improving the happiness of your employees is not utopian; real measures can be implemented to improve the well-being of workers in your company and even learn to be happier yourself.

 

Happiness at work : current context

Enjoying work and finding a way to grow professionally is everyone’s goal. Indeed, for many years, we have made little connection between well-being and work. Today, the reality is that one in two employees think that their work is a source of constraints rather than a personal fulfillment. These constraints include the lack of consideration of supervisors on the work provided (37%), the lack of support in their professional development (46%) and a lack of independence in their position (29%).

 

Happiness at work : current context

The quality difference of life at work between employees/workers and managers

As a result of this, there is an increase in sick leave. Statistics show that cases of depression and burnout nearly tripled between 2007 and 2018.

In fact, 37% of European employees say they have experienced a situation of “personal fragility” (burnout), mainly caused by harsh physical or psychological working conditions (31%), a loss of meaning and a strong feeling of dehumanization of work (23%), or a great difficulty in reconciling personal and professional life (11%).

But fortunately, the situation is changing, because so far 40% of managers have linked the relationship between situation of fragility and company productivity, wishing to end this causal relationship by implementing management tools. New positions such as the “Chief Happiness Officer” are also created, which perfectly illustrates this new trend of humanization of work.

The benefits of a happy employee

What if you were told that a good quality of life at work is reflected in the quality of service provided to clients? In fact, the benefits for a happy business are a 37% increase in sales, a 31% increase in productivity, and a 19% increase in efficiency. Not to mention the positive impact on the health of employees and their quality of life.

This result is explained by the existence of neurological relationships between our emotions and our thoughts and these interactions have consequences on our daily actions. As a result, when a person is overwhelmed with negative emotions, they may find it difficult to focus, motivate, and thrive in their work. On the other hand, if employees are motivated and satisfied, their attitude towards work will change, as will their colleagues, managers and the organization in general. Fortunately, there are many ways to initiate this change!

The 3 “secrets” to implement

"How can you act as a model employer so that your staff feels fulfilled at work and cooperates with enthusiasm?”

Below you will find several “secrets” that can be considered to increase the happiness of your employees and ensure the sustainability of your business.

 

The 3 “secrets” to implement

 

1st secret → The satisfaction survey

In order to understand your weaknesses and prevent future difficulties, it may be helpful to send your employees a satisfaction survey (you will find an example of a satisfaction survey here).

The implementation of this tool will motivate your employees since they will feel listened to, valued and involved in decisions.

In addition, one of the advantages of this method is its price, since you will not have to make visits, hire investigators, pay for travel expenses or calls. Your expenses will be minimal. These surveys will allow you to test the climate within your company, gather opinions on the quality of the cooperation between the teams and the conditions of work in order to be able to apply adequate operational changes for the good development of your company.

2nd secret → Improve your employees' mobility experience

Stresses exist in different forms at work. Among these stresses, we will particularly focus on the one related to mobility. Indeed, today, more than one in four employees say that their home-work commute is a major source of stress.

What “secret” should you implement to solve this problem?

We advise you to optimize the management of your corporate parking lot and rent extra parking spaces if necessary, so that your employees can easily park their vehicle every morning without having to fear any delay related to parking issues. Today, companies such as BePark enable you to implement these solutions to meet your employee’s parking needs.

3rd secret → Create pleasant workspaces

The 3 “secrets” to implement

Example of office design

An employee spends about a third of his time working at his desk, so this is a space in which he evolves day after day, but have you ever wondered if the composition of the workspaces could have an impact on the quality of your employees’ work and their morale?

Well, we think so!

In fact, if your employees are not comfortable with their work spaces, they will have little motivation to go there in the morning. We invite you then to look into the idea of the restructuring your offices.

Therefore, our secret is to implement an employee vote every two to three years, so that employees can give their opinion on a new composition of offices or functions.

Proposals could be made such as the preference for some of the offices placed face to face, separate offices for others or change of furniture.


We hope that this article and these 3 secrets will help you improve your employees happiness and allow them to grow under the best conditions!

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