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I recently went to a local Business Chamber meeting where we had three speakers who were there to talk about happiness in the workplace.

What I loved about this meeting is that all speakers were from different industry and each one talked about what made their workplace so good. What was great to hear was the different steps they had put in place to ensure the happiness level in their workplace continued.

There were so many key takeaways for me – some I already share with the businesses I work with and a few that I was unaware of, which I am about to share with you.

How do you create happiness in the workplace?

We all know employee happiness increases productivity and decreases staff turnover. Research shows that the cost of turnover is two and a half times an employee’s salary and the cost of a dysfunctional member of staff impacts other members, takes up valuable leadership time and impacts the bottom line.

Firstly and most importantly, the number 1 lesson I remind companies and individuals is “You get the behaviour you are willing to accept“.

As a leader you have to be courageous – recruit slow but fire fast

Focus most of your time on the ‘recruitment process’ and you won’t spend too much time on the other.  Another reason, I like to encourage companies to use psychometric testing when employing staff.  It takes less than 7 minutes for a toxic employee to infect the rest of their team. Act quickly!

Walk your Talk

Don’t have a Vision or Mission Statement that says one thing but everyone from the top down do something different.  Samsung are a prime example of this in the way they have dealt with their current ‘exploding phones issue’.  Their behaviour is the exact opposite of their written Values.

At the meeting, there was majority agreement about the wording “Human Resources” and what an insulting term it was. Some proactive companies have already changed to People & Culture or Employee Engagement, far more indicative of the value employees bring to the workplace. Google of course, just call them ‘our people’.

Employ diversity

Employing diversity was touched on not only from different groups of people but also different industries to encourage creativity and innovation.

Personal wellbeing

Personal wellbeing ranked highly, as well as knowing who your staff are as individuals and what they wanted to achieve in their lives – ensuring you encourage and develop them to follow their dreams.

Value your staff

People want to be valued, listened to and ultimately make a difference in their part of the world.  They do not want to be bullied or micro-managed.

And the final nugget shared which I thought was very profound – “Culture determines response in challenging times“. How very true!

With all of this in mind, I trawled through Google and found this interesting survey data on Retention and Turnover completed by the Australian Institute of Human Resources.

Until next time.

Glenise is the Owner and Director of SR Group and Self Confident Women. Her passion lies in increasing confidence and emotional intelligence levels for individuals and teams, creating higher productivity and happiness.  She is a Speaker, qualified Trainer, Advanced Consultant in Extended DISC and Coach & Mentor