Recently, I noticed this article about the fact that happy employees are more productive. The article is a few years old and a lot of other research has led to similar conclusions. Most of us already know this or at least think it makes sense. And it is, considering the tight labour market, probably more relevant than ever. Yet, I am surprised that most organizations, even though they state the importance of the well-being of their employees, struggle to shape this properly, other than by means of financial and other benefits, which hardly have any influence on the happiness and motivation of the employees. It seems many organizations struggle with something that cannot that easily be captured in methods and techniques.
Individual happiness is influenced by many things, including the weather. Within the influenceable organizational context I have found it is mainly personal attention, understanding and working with an individual’s motivation, and showing genuine appreciation that increase the employee’s happiness and help them perform better. These things often come from the employee’s manager, and that is exactly what most organizations struggle with: how can you get most of your leaders to exhibit these behaviours consistently, including the ones that are not naturally good at it?
It starts by creating a culture that is coming from the top. When a leadership team consistently pays attention to these behaviours, and applies them themselves and/or allow themselves to be coached, most leaders reporting into the leadership team will start to copy the behaviours. Some may need more coaching than others, but generally people will follow the example. It is my personal experience that, when I applied these behaviours and also made them part of our leadership team, we managed to create a more positive atmosphere and the organization as a whole performed better.
Dutch version Posted on LinkedIn on March 4, 2022