More Work Makes for Happier Employees
Monday, May 5th, 2008
WHAT? No, no way. I love when work is slow and I have time to relax.
You may be thinking this, but if you look down deep at when you are the happiest at work it’s probably when you are most productive. I love attending outside events because it gets me out of the office. I meet the people that are already customers or potentially new contacts. There is just something special about face to face meetings that email, telephone, and video conferencing can’t replace. I also feel like I’m making a difference at my job. I know that if I’m talking the good talk that people will come in and use our services.
At the end of the day I’m more tired, but I feel more satisfied. I can also feel this way when working on a report. The day just seems to fly by and I look up and it’s time to go home. I’m usually relaxed and feel a sense of accomplishment.
I read a great article from Doug Kline. He wrote a guest post called Employees Want More Work? (Not Less?) at the Performance and Talent Management blog.
My favorite part was…
Employees who are bored (reporting “too little work”) are often doing work for which they are ill-suited, or have jobs that are poorly designed. As a result, they have by far lower job satisfaction, sense of accomplishment, and pride in their employers compared to all other workers. All in all, they feel less valued.
Read the whole article here.
If your job isn’t what you want it to be then speak up. Try to give feedback to your manager and see how they respond. You probably don’t want to start off with outrageous demands of running the department, but you could start by asking for a job that you’ve been wanting to do for a while. It never hurts to ask.
I have a friend who loves to help her co-workers out when her work is slow. She stops by their desks and asks if they can give her a little something to lighten their work load.
You should see their face when she asks to help them. They just light up.
One might worry that this would be an invitation for people to dump all their work on her, but no one ever does that. They usually give her something really easy and she is able to help a couple of people in the office with their work.
Has a co-worker ever asked to help you with your work? How did you respond?
This is so true. I am most satisfied when I have a lot of work at work. Even on weekends, when I accomplish a lot, I feel better. I guess we are not really far off from the worker bees or the ant colony.
While it’s important to work and work hard, it’s also important to relax. Sometimes a taut string needs to be relaxed so that it won’t snap.
Chris’s last blog post..Sunday Morning Brunch With The Natives
Hey Chris, sometimes we need to relax ourselves. We can’t work at a feverish pace for too long without breaking down. I just read an article about scheduling in free time in every day. When we do this it gives us a change to enjoy our day. And you know me. I’m all about enjoyment, especially at work.
It’s a paradox, to be sure. I’m about as lazy a person as I can be. Yet I love to be busy producing positive results. Some days I put in 10 hours, 12 hours, and don’t even notice it goes by, because I’ve got my focus strong, my intentions clear, the work that needs to be done is right in front of me and I know I can do it, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I know that if I don’t do it, it will be hanging over me waiting to get done. Sure, I can do nothing, and love it for long stretches of time. But the sheer pleasure of making a difference, whether its in my my workload, my business, or through my work and business in the work and business of others, seems to override my inner slacker!
Meanwhile, I think the strategy used by the friend who loves to help her co-workers out whenever she can is a great example of a powerful persuasion skill. Besides the delight her co-workers display at that moment, she is accomplishing another important goal: building trust, in her workplace, and in her relationships with these lucky folks she helps. That’s what I call blending, which is sending signals of similarity and reducing differences in order to increase the sense of common ground and reciprocal trust.
There is a great upside to doing what she’s doing, just so long as she doesn’t do it so much as to make it the norm. Once people expect it of her, it might lose its persuasive value, when a failure to do it could ironically lead to disappointment. But done on occasion, and unexpectedly, it sends a powerful message of “You’re not alone, I’m on your side.” This is an investment, not just in the morale or environment in which she works, but specifically in the future of those relationships. This investment may prove its value at just the time when she needs support for an idea, or help with a challenge, or wants to pull together the energy to make something worthwhile happen.
A little extra work from her up front may mean a lot less work she needs to do down the road. Of course, that’s going to free her up to find other work to keep busy with in order to find that fulfillment in productive work! But as I said, it’s a paradox!
I love your blog, Karl! Makes me happy just reading it! Keep up the great work!
Dr. K’s last blog post..Dealing With Bad Behavior from Your Boss
Hey Dr. K, you have a lot of great insight. I like your point that the woman can’t over do her generosity otherwise she’ll have a co-worker backlash if she doesn’t keep doing it. Their is a fine line of being too generous and not generous enough.
We all have to find our balance at work and sometimes if the right balance is not struck it can cause unease. The better we understand ourselves and the environment, the more successful we can become.