What can be done at the different levels of a company to create happiness at the work place?

If success is the degree of happiness we all have; then a company must become more successful if its management, teams and on ground workers are happy.  Richard Branson and Donald Trump both agree that their best assets are their people that work for them.  It makes sense then; that a CEO and his leadership team first need to ensure their own happiness and then spread ‘the happiness bug’ to all their employees. It’s the ripple effect and it doesn’t stop there.  The happiness bug spreads to customers and families at home. 

FedEx won the best employer of the year award last year.  When I asked one of their staff why they like working for the company, one of the couriers who had been working for FedEx for nine years said he loved the ‘freedom’. He said he was allowed to do what ever it takes to get the job done for the clients and the clients are grateful for their effort.

Another way to describe “freedom” is empowerment. CEO of FedEx Australasia, Rhicke Jennings, is one of the most empowered men and the most empowering.  He believes in his company’s mission statement and has spent years on personal development ensuring his own strengths and happiness and as he has grown and developed personally he brings in similar teachings and philosophies to his management team and their teams.

So how does this work?  In the past companies only focused on a couple of the seven key areas of life which are: social, family and friends, career, finances, health, relationships and spirituality with regard to their training and teams – staff happiness didn’t seem to be a priority. 

For years we have been told that it is prudent to have balance in all seven areas of life, yet the most passionate and most happy and successful people do a lot more of what they like doing than those – aiming to get “balance” in all areas of their lives. 

Life has a funny way of tipping the scales…for those bent on “balance” this can be so annoying and stressful that life becomes a constant battle.  Is that you?

Here is a suggestion. If employees do a lot more of what you like and the scales tip a little, then life situations become “just is” and it is so much easier to get on with issues and aim to continue with your passion. 

Examples are Tiger Woods the world famous golfer.  Is his life in balance? No.  He plays golf every day and travels the world in planes and lives in hotels a lot.  Is he happy? Yes. Because he is doing what he loves. You take a sales man who also has to travel a lot and live in hotels.  If he is not enjoying the travel and hates being away from home, then this can be stressful.  He needs to consider and choose what is better for him personally to bring him joy, because a sales man that loves to travel will definitely be more successful than one that loathes being away. 

Corporations need to do their due diligence to ensure they have the right people positioned and matched to their positions for everyone’s benefit. Every successful person I know works putting in 100% into what they do and time just flies because they enjoy what they are doing…it’s not considered “hard” for them. 

For many years employees have been complaining that they have been pigeon holed by their companies to do one particular job or role and that was it. Many individual’s skills were left dormant. Corporations need to empower and inspire their management teams and improve their staff’s happiness quotient to create opportunities to utilise skills and create synergy with other prospective roles or cross over. Since growth is so important for personal development and staff retention the value of creating happiness is one which everyone needs to adopt for the sustainability of a healthy happy individual, corporation or business.

Here are five action points the management to ensure teams perform better at work.
1.    Split training into age brackets so that they can be empowered in different ways that they can relate to. For example, older staff need respect, middle aged need rah rah and the young need fast, noisy bursts...
2.    Increase relationship connectivity – that means getting to know the individuals and what their personal skills and passions are. My personal assistant Stacey was great in the office yet I found out she had trained in event management and the music industry. She was thrilled when I said once we get bigger I could move her into the event management position.  She would know all about the deals being my PA.  She had a career path and something to get excited about and also saw the benefit of being my PA too.
3.    Less rules and more responsibility.  Empowerment. Staff need to ask for what they want or make it know.  If you don’t say anything, no one will know what you can do or how you can contribute.
4.    More compliments and less criticism.

Employees feel great for making a positive difference and the benefactors feel lucky and supported.  It’s a win-win. Everyone gains confidence, self-esteem and pride in their work.  Happy workers, happy hive and happy customers and families!

Shelley Sykes
Author and speaker, TV Presenter
d’Oz International
www.d-oz.com