New Year’s Resolutions to make your Workplace Happier

It is the beginning of a new year and generally the time you start making a list of resolutions.

Essentially most resolutions revolve around living a happier life and having more success in the workplace.

This year instead of making the same negative resolutions about taming bad habits, this year simply make your resolution to obtain workplace happiness by trying to focus on the positives.

1. Be mindful. There is significant evidence that a few minutes of mindfulness, or simple meditation, throughout the work day can give you substantial health and happiness benefits.
2. Use your strengths. It makes sense that your happiest when you align your work with your strengths and personality. 
3. Learn to be optimistic. Optimism is actually something that can be learned if you’re not a naturally optimistic person. Start by challenging your own negative thoughts. When a setback occurs try to look at it in perspective and see that it is not the end of the world. Essentially optimists see every setback as temporary.
4. Have a little fun. It is totally acceptable to have a bit of fun and a laugh at work. It will make your work life more enjoyable and even encourages team building and promotes healthy work relationships.
5. Get on the move. If you work behind a computer or in an office where you are mostly sitting down all day, take the time to have a walk around the office every few hours. Eat your lunch in the sunshine when possible. It will help you concentrate better and help you to feel refreshed.
6. Be your own cheerleader. If your boss doesn’t praise your work every day, don’t take it personally, it’s very likely they have other things on their mind. Try and take satisfaction from knowing that you have done a job well.
7. Be nice. Talk to the people you work with about things other than work.  It doesn’t cost you anything to be pleasant and you will find your work life more meaningful if you can build relationships with your colleagues.
8. Be resilient. Learn to bounce back from a setback. As with resolution number 3 , being able to see a setback as temporary will be an invaluable quality and you will be able to handle just about anything.
9. Be Grateful. People who show thankfulness and express gratitude to others often have a higher appreciation for the good things in life and experience higher levels of wellbeing than those who do not.
10. Avoid gossip. Avoid workplace gossip at all costs. If someone in your workplace try’s to engage in gossip with you, make an excuse and walk away. Gossip is negative and harmful and does not truly make anyone feel good about themselves.

Staff Retention Strategies

If you are not doing all you can to keep your staff happy and engaged, you may be at risk of losing your most productive workers to your competition.

You do not need to spend a lot of money to put a staff retention strategy in place. Here are a few things that can help you keep your staff happy.

• A well-defined career path – Most employees want to progress in their careers and like to know that there are opportunities available within their workplace to do so. Have discussions with your team about their professional goals and aspirations and how they can achieve them within your organisation. Offer mentoring and training programmes.
• Acknowledgement - Make an effort to acknowledge staff achievements and hard work. Most staff are more engaged and have a stronger feeling of satisfaction in their work if they feel that managers appreciate their contribution to the workplace.
• Trust – It can be difficult to be productive when someone is breathing down your neck while you are trying to go about your duties. Most employees like to feel that they can be trusted and relied upon to complete their work efficiently without being micro managed.
• Flexible work environment – Flexible work agreements are one of the most desirable elements of a work environment for staff. Giving your staff the opportunity to attend their children’s school activities or medical emergencies can make a big difference to an employee’s happiness within their job. Helping your staff maintain a healthy work and personal life balance can really increase loyalty to your company.
• Ethics – Most people would prefer to work for a company that they believe is good. It can be beneficial to promote ethics when interacting with customers and employees. Ensure your workplace encourages fairness and diversity.
• Communication – Well defined communication is one of the most important factors of retaining staff. Most staff liked to know what is expected of them and to have clear a clear job description or role within the company. Keep employees up to date when it comes to developments within the organisation. People feel more involved and part of the organisation when they are kept in the loop. Encourage employee feedback and ideas. When staff are involved with projects from the beginning they are more likely to feel connected to the outcome. Make sure to address interpersonal problems among staff members as soon as possible.

By using some of these strategies you can help encourage employee motivation and loyalty and lower the likelihood of losing staff to your competition.

Engagement the key to improving business results

An employee who is engaged works with their colleagues to improve performance within their job for the benefit of the organisation. An organisation should work to develop engagement to achieve a symbiotic relationship between employee and employer.

By nurturing an engaged workforce your company can receive many benefits, including:

•    60% reduction in quality defects
•    16% increased profits
•    37% less absenteeism
•    18% productivity increase
•    12% customer satisfaction improvement
•    25% reduction in staff turnover

Research confirms that engagement leads to higher financial performance, higher customer satisfaction and higher employee retention.

Senior leader participation is a critical factor for employee engagement. Good leaders create an environment of engagement .If senior leaders do not understand the importance of an engaged workforce your business can suffer because of it.

Higher levels of employee engagement in an organisation can unmistakably help improve business performance. To encourage a sense of engagement in a workforce it’s vital to have leaders that motivate employees and win their respect.

Leaders should act as role models and inspire employees.

There is a powerful connection between the level of employee engagement and organisational performance.

Consider using customer satisfaction surveys to assess the levels of staff engagement in your organisation. If customer satisfaction is high, it is likely that employee engagement is too. If customer satisfaction is poor, so is employee engagement. The results can help to prove to your management team the effects of employee engagement and encourage them to foster it in the workplace.

Disengaged workers can be the most harmful employees in the workplace. They are discontented and let that unhappiness show in words, attitudes and actions. They can undermine the performance of others by dragging down the morale and drive of the team. Improving employee engagement does not necessarily need to be expensive or time consuming.

Here are 3 effective ways of boosting staff engagement in your workplace:

•    Praise from supervisors
•    Attention from leaders
•    Opportunity to lead projects

Many companies are beginning to understand that engaged employees are a formidable source of competitive advantage.

An engaged employee is more enthusiastic to expend more effort into their work, put in more hours, brainpower and energy. They have more commitment to do the best job they can and take on roles with more enthusiasm and energy.

They bring original concepts and ideas and infuse their team with enthusiasm and are less likely to seek employment elsewhere.