If there’s one thing that we should learn from this pandemia is the importance of feeling mentally and emotionally well and resilient. If we do not set this as a priority, we will see ourselves losing in so many areas of our lives, including in our jobs.
For many years the role of a Chief Happiness Officer, or other roles that are in charge for employees happiness and motivation, has been discussed with a certain kind of levity. However, things have changed and more than ever, the corporate world understands the importance of investing and managing their business with people, and not numbers, in mind.
So, if you are the person in charge of making this happen at your company, you must know and be aware of how important you are and how your role can positively impact other people's lives.
And once that you are now in the spotlight, we are here to help you do your best building happy and collaborative workplaces, even when you have a huge obstacle to overcome: distance.
How can you easily improve your people's well-being, even in a remote way?
Here’s five useful tips on what you need to start doing right now to have the best results, when it comes to improving happiness at work nowadays:
1. Connect with your coworkers everyday
One of the main human needs is to connect and engage with other people.
And if you think that you only must satisfy this need outside work, you are totally wrong.
A survey done to employees of 120 businesses across the UK, has shown that 57% of respondents feel their time at work more enjoyable if they have a best friend at their workplace. Almost a third stated they were more productive and over one in five see their creativity improve.(1)
So, as a CHO you must set the example and set time to connect with other employees as a priority task of yours.
Make sure that everyday you speak with different people, asking them how they are and truly listen.
In order to boost your connection you can use Wellbeing Warrior’s Coffee Break and start the conversations with some of our Random Tips.
Make the most out of this initiative to really get to know your coworkers, improve relationships and shorten some distances.
2. Coach and build a culture where people can thrive together.
Once our human basic needs are met, we all have something that will leverage our happiness to the next level: the chance to develop our skills.
But doing this alone can be quite hard, especially when it comes to understanding which skills we should develop and knowing what we have to do in order to accomplish them.
For employees, having someone inside the company that will coach them and help them set and accomplish their goals, will be something they will never forget and probably it will make them feel the need to help other colleagues improve and learn more.
Assume the Coach role and promote this behaviour inside the company. By using our Mentor Program, you will easily pair people with each other and the team will get better results.
3. Don’t forget to celebrate.
Life is not only about working to achieve something.
Once someone of your team reaches the goal, make sure you find a way to join everyone and celebrate. It will leverage employee’s morale and make them feel motivated to keep doing a great job.
Besides celebrating profissional results, make sure you don’t forget any important milestones and special dates, like anniversaries and birthdays.
Even at distance you want to make sure that everyone’s success and happiness is celebrated in time. Don’t wait for the social distance to end, it can take a lot more time than you wish and the feeling will not be the same.
Send by mail a small gift, a special card, or create a Lunch Roulette with everyone.
Now is the time to show that you truly care for your people’s well-being.
And caring is not only to be there listening to what they have to say and how they feel, but most importantly, actively make sure that everyone has the same access to activities that promote and improve self-care and setting new healthy routines in their lives.
Even if you are an extremely successful CHO, there’s always a limit to where you can go. The last and final decision and the responsibility to act and start doing something is each individual responsibility.
However, nudging and helping people to establish new habits is something that you definitely should be doing.
Gather people weekly in a chat room for a mindfulness meditation.You will see stress and anxiety levels reducing, whyle, and accordingly to a study made in 2015, enhancing job performance, work engagement, and job satisfaction (2).
5. Work on trust.
Have you ever seen a team reaching great results if they don’t trust and collaborate with each other?
Certainly not.
And what about keeping employees engaged and motivated in a workplace that lacks communication and transparency?
If people don’t know in a clear way what goals the company wants to achieve, they will not be able to understand most of the decisions made and nurture the feeling of trust. Also, it will be more difficult for the company to attain those goals.
Now, put together the lack of trust and the increased uncertainty feeling that we are experiencing during these times, and you will have the key for disaster.
Avoid this and start working on a culture of trust, by using the All Hands Meeting initiative. You will be able to previously gather all your coworkers questions about the future of the company and easily schedule a meeting where you can openly talk about the company's next goals and moves.
Start as soon as possible implementing these tips at your workplace and you will definitely nail it.
If you want to get to know more about how Wellbeing Warrior can help you with your work and have the results you want, contact us now and start using our free-trial.
Using Wellbeing Warrior will:
- Give you access to a lot of different initiatives that truly work.
- Automate your work, saving you a lot of time for what really matters: People!
- Have access to statistics that will help you gather all the information you need in order to implement the right well-being and happiness strategy.
Be a Wellbeing Warrior and help make the difference in people’s lives by promoting happier workplaces.