Notes

Pursuit of Happiness

We always find happiness anywhere in the world. Psychologists also say that happy employees are more productive, more creative and less likely to leave. It doesn’t have to cost a fortune to create a fun environment at your workplace. If you embody your ideal corporate culture and integrate joy and laughter into your daily routine, your employees will follow. If you are a business owner, it is therefore wise to do things to benefit your employees and make them happy. If you are an employee, find ways to make your stay in the company a happy one to ease the stress in your workplace.

As a company ourselves, Westhill Consulting and Employment also face the same challenge in maintaining happy people as there are so many personal and business reasons for them not to. Fortunately, we have some steps that we follow that respond to this issues.

For Employers
1. Lead by Example
As we all know, employees look up to you. If you are too serious, your employees may hesitate to smile in front of you, let alone interact and laugh with you. They may feel the need to be serious all the time. Although being serious is also important, loose your collar a little for you to let happy vibes around you. Add a little self-depreciating humor when it is appropriate to help your employees view you as human and approachable. A little fraud smile will also do despite the pressure. Who knows, they may see your odd smile and lift their hearts to you a little.

2. Embody Optimism
Staff meetings can quickly become monotonous. Use each meeting as an opportunity to encourage positive team dynamics. When we are conducting a meeting with our partners once in Jakarta, Indonesia, we were surprised when the manager presiding the meeting encouraged us all to play a charade first before starting the meeting. Those 15 minutes of laughter are enough to bring out positivity around us even when what we are discussing may be a little too critical.

3. Celebrate
There is no harm if you reward yourself and your employees once in a while. Recognize and acknowledge your employees successes, no matter how small. Staff celebrations don’t need to be fancy, planned or expensive. Acknowledgement can be as simple as sharing one team member’s accomplishment during a staff meeting.

Employees:
1. Give a happy “Hello” in the morning with a smile. Psychologists say it is contagious.
2. Learn the Art of Small Talk. Review what you learn about your colleague and engage him in little talks or even if it’s a general statement like the weather or how nice her skirt is.
3. Avoid gossip.
4. Pretend your kids are watching when dealing with a hard colleague which you have misunderstanding with.
5. Retail Emails and Calls Promptly. It is to show that these people who took time to email you are also important to you.