5 Tips for Creating a Happy Workplace

Why care about a happy work environment? 🧐

As a workplace leader, it’s your responsibility to ensure that your employees feel happy in the workplace. You might not think this is something worth spending resources on, but we’re challenging you to rethink that. 

When your employees experience happiness at work, they are better employees. But you don’t have to just take it from us. Here are some facts that might have you rethinking the way you prioritize employee happiness:

• Companies with happy employees outperform their competitors by 20%, which might be due to the fact that happy employees are 2% more productive.
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• 36% of employees would give up $5,000 per year in salary to be happier at work (maybe money really doesn’t buy happiness after all 😉)
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• Toxic work culture is 10X more likely to result in turnover than inadequate compensation

The list of benefits of employees feeling good in their career goes on. 

Now, let’s skip to the fun part. Here are easy ways to create the ideal workplace for your employees! 👇‍

5 tips for creating happy workplaces 🥳

The key to creating an ideal and happy workplace for your employees is to look at organizational behavior as a whole. We all get busy and overwhelmed sometimes, but your company culture should be built around having fun and being productive. 

If you’re looking to improve employee experiences and have a happier, healthier, more productive work environment, you’ve come to the right place.

1. Offer a set-up stipend & set-up suggestions 🖥

Feeling comfortable with your work area is more important than you might think! Especially when your office is fully or partially remote. You want to give your employees all the tools that they need to succeed at their jobs, and to feel at home in their home office.

💡 Consider incorporating the following: 
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• Set-up stipends for your staff. This gives them creative control over their physical workspace without the added stress of tapping into their personal expenses to make sure they have everything they need for their home office or co-working space.
  
  
• Develop a “set-up suggestion guide.” Outline tips on equipment that employees could choose to spend their stipend on in order to help them feel happy and comfortable in their workspace. Having a standing desk, comfortable desk chair, or double monitors could change the way your employees feel about their workspace.
  
  
• Gift office decorations that match their style. The new team member is a total plant parent? Consider a desk plant! Our terrarium workshop guides your team to make their own air plant environment. It’s also a team-building activity that brings your employees closer together (a great way to create a happy workplace).

Bonus points if your guide takes individual work style into consideration. Different people work better in different environments. No matter what their work style is (or where they’re working), you want to give your team the tools they need to feel productive and comfortable.

2. Incentivize health and wellness initiatives 💪

Implementing health and wellness initiatives is a great way to care for your employee’s physical and mental health both in and outside of the workplace! But the most important part is to make it engaging.

When done right, health initiatives can encourage a work environment that is healthy, engaging, and a lot of fun. 

💡 If you’re strapped for ideas on how to kickstart a health initiative that will improve your team’s job performance and help them feel happier, why not try one of these?

• Offer free or discounted gym memberships.
• Schedule monthly movement days (our Deskercise class is perfect for this, btw).
• Provide free lunches for the office, or lunch stipends for your remote staff.
• Host a healthy cooking class. 
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And that’s just skimming the surface! There are a lot of things you can do to make wellness fun for your staff. Plus, everyone will feel better for it at the end of the day.

3. Support career development 🙌

It’s a common misconception that supporting your employee’s career development will cause them to have wandering eyes. In reality, the effect is completely opposite! Employees are more likely to stay with a company that supports both their professional and personal development.

Your team strives for growth, and they aren’t likely to stay long or be happy in a workplace that doesn’t support and encourage their career aspirations. Here are a few ways that you can support their growth and create a more positive work environment:

• Offer to pay for continued education/certifications in their field.
• Have managers on staff that know how to “coach” and provide career guidance for their team.
• Provide opportunities and challenges outside of an employee’s comfort zone that aligns with their professional goals. 
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Always remember to take your employee’s goals and work styles into consideration!

During performance evaluations ask question to help discover if your team members want to be challenged more. Here are some example questions:

• Do you feel you’re growing toward where you want to be?
• What are your favorite parts about your role currently? Is there any type of responsibility you want more of?
• Are there any parts of your role that leave you feeling under-utilized or disengaged? 
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If there is an opportunity to shape a team member’s role around their aspirations, take it. Not only will they be more productive in their current role, but they will be happier working for your company in general.
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4. Invest in company culture 👯

“Company culture” isn’t just a corporate buzzword. It actually matters! You want your employees to enjoy working with one another. More than that, you want them to be friends! 

Building a community within your teams creates a happy and healthy work life balance. A person is way more likely to remain with your company if they have work “besties.” In fact…

• 95% of teens rank having a job or career they enjoy as a top priority for their future adulthood (via Pew)
• If employees don’t have a best friend at work, there’s only a 1 in 12 chance that they’ll be engaged. (via Gallup)
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You can do this from the beginning of their tenure with your company by planning engaging group activities for onboarding cohorts. Just remember to maintain that sense of community throughout the entire employee life cycle. 

5. Recognize and reward accomplishments 🏅

A leading cause of employee dissatisfaction is not having their accomplishments recognized and rewarded, and not having the opportunity to gracefully learn from their mistakes. If you read this post, then you know that this is also a recipe for employee burnout.

Overall, making sure that your leadership makes their team feel valued is key. This can be both big and small–praising team members in private and sharing big wins company-wide.

At Confetti, we have our Slack #gratitude-channel. Our employees are able to shout each other out and highlight accomplishments! 

Keep building the best workplace possible ✨

If your workplace is in need of a morale boost, make sure to bookmark this post! You want your team to be happy and stick around for a long time. And, as an added bonus for you, your employees’ productivity and performance will increase significantly.

If you want to bring your remote team together for a fun, engaging activity, check out our virtual team building activities. A happy workplace is just a click away! 🥳