We spend a lot of our time ‘at work’ whether that’s working within an office, out on the road, in a premises – or even at our desk at home. For employers, having a happy workforce means engaged, resilient and productive employees. But for employees happiness is much more personal: it comes down to workload, leadership, empowerment and the other emotional responses we have to the workplace situations we find ourselves in.
The International Week of Happiness at Work (20th – 26th September) is an initiative that started in the Netherlands. This awareness week was created to encourage employers to make happiness a priority.
Over time, the week has really taken hold and awareness of employers’ responsibilities to their people has grown. Workplace Happiness, indeed workplace wellbeing, is something all organisations should be striving to achieve because employees are the most important asset of a business. Employee happiness and wellbeing should be the biggest priority of any company owner.
Why? Because happy employees are the most vocal and persuasive advocates for their employers. A strong and sustained ‘happy voice’ is tangible proof of your workplace values. You can translate it into a positive image (to existing staff and to people looking in from outside) and there is no measure on the positive impact this can have on a business.
And when people look at a business and see happy people, and when employees speak openly about a positive working environment, attracting just the right talent into the business is easy. In turn, this keeps recruitment costs down and reduces staff turnover, or churn, because employees are less likely to seek work elsewhere.
What do you do to keep your employees happy? We’d love to know.
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