When a business stops trying to control their employees, the employees begin to feel free at work. This freedom will allow them to feel more comfortable and happy.

Let’s say you have 50 employees who each have 100 Facebook and 100 Twitter friends. That’s 10,000 people that your employees are interacting with. They are talking about you to their friends.

What are they really saying?

Employee Outreach

You should be encouraging your employees to talk about their company, but never force them to use social media. Your employees will share the company’s story with their friends when you treat your employees like the superstars that they are.

This is where freedom comes in. If your people feel that they are free to do what is best for them and the company, they will use this freedom to make both themselves and the company happy.

It’s this happiness that flows into the rest of their conversations.

Some employees will always rebel against their employer. They will feel stifled working for someone else. This is a small percentage. The majority of the people will compare their freedoms with their friends. If they can leave work to watch their daughter in a school play on a Wednesday afternoon, they will feel lucky. If they don’t have to ask the boss for permission to do so, they will feel trusted.

They will also be more willing to think about work while in the shower. This after hours thinking is when the big ideas manifest themselves. When at work people are distracted by the small tasks.  When away from work (i.e. taking a shower) their mind is free to expand into creative solutions.

It’s About the Results

A person who is engaged in their work and who cares about what they do will be working at all times of the day. They will feel free to do this because they were free on a Wednesday afternoon when they wanted to watch their daughter in her play.

“It’s a two way street,” as my father always told me. The more freedom and trust you give your employees, the more energy they will give back to you.

Is this a perfect method? No. But the alternative is watching employees like a hawk, restricting their creativity until you piss off most of your employees, then they feel forced to leave or stay under the radar. We know how both of these options work out.

We have to adapt and treat people the way they want to be treated, so they will be happy and create results that will make both employer and employee proud.

A New Direction

We must rehumanize business for the sake of our health (economy and individual).

It’s also the best way we can reduce stress. People don’t stress out because the work is too hard. People stress out because they feel forced to do work that they don’t like.

70% of people go to the hospital because of stress-related symptoms. It’s funny that 70% of white collar workers are unhappy at work. Coincidence, hmmm I think not.

When people believe that they are making choices instead of being told what to do, then they will feel like they are creating their own destiny.

Rehumanizing business will improve most companies’ bottom line (more creativity, increased engagement and less absenteeism) as well as individual employee’s happiness and job enjoyment.

My Own Rebuttal

If this is such a great idea, then why don’t all companies give more freedom to their employees?

Old Habits Die Hard

We are so used to the old way of doing business. We are afraid to try something that might not work. We don’t want to risk the whole company crumbling because everyone is off watching their daughter in her school play or hanging out in coffee shops.

We need to crush this fear and replace it with fear of falling behind. We all know that when we are happy and free, we do great work.

We should give employees more freedom to connect with the customer (improve marketing), take off when they want without fear of big brother keeping track (improve trust), and develop projects that will improve the company (improve creativity).

Let’s rehumanize business together.

Link to this post or tweet about rehumanizing business and let’s get more people talking about this concept. You could also send this series of posts to a friend who owns a business. Hopefully they see the value in letting their employees have the freedom to create amazing work.

Want to catch up in this 3 part series? Then check out:

- Part 1 – Rehumanize Business

- Part 2 – Unleash Your Employee’s Creative Marketing Beast

* Join over 600 people who have already subscribed to the FREE Happy at Work 10 Week eCourse. It will arrive in your inbox every Monday morning, when you need it the most. (Sign up is in the top left corner)

* I love an article from Office Arrow. It’s called Challenge Your Potential: Competent Leadership.

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- The Secrets to Workplace Leadership

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You may have read that title and thought, “What does my company’s marketing have to do with work happiness?”

A lot.

70% of business is transacted because your friend told you about a product or service. You probably own an iPod because your friends wouldn’t stop raving about their iPod. You trust your friends to recommend good stuff.

Zappos let’s their employees Twitter on the job. They trust their people to connect with the customer.

I love Zappos, not because they have every kind of shoe on the planet, but because they ship for free, have a 360 day return policy and pay for shipping back to the company if you want to return a purchase. Now that’s worth spreading.

People want to share stuff that makes them happy. It’s up to companies to encourage their people to share their story.

Your Marketing Team

When a company thinks of everyone as a part of their marketing team, they become more humane to their employees. For example, an employee can now blog or Twitter about an event that happened at work and there is potential for millions of people to hear about it.

Southwest Airlines has the rapping flight attendant. Over 100 thousand people have viewed videos of the flight attendant rapping the rules of the flight. It makes me wish that some day I will have him on one of my flights. This is more valuable than a Super Bowl ad (2 million dollars for 30 seconds). This YouTube video is being passed around by friends, making people talk about it. Because our friends like it, we trust it.

Friends encourage one another to watch the video, which makes people more likely to try the product.

We are living in a day and age when employers can encourage employees to take a larger role in a company’s success. Why aren’t we jumping all over this?

Fear.

- Companies are afraid that their employees may do something to embarrass the company.

- Companies are afraid that their employees will take advantage of these new tools.

- Companies are afraid that…

And on and on. The fear rolls on.

Your fear should not determine the happiness of your employees. After all, your employees who are taking advantage of you are doing it right now and will continue do it because they feel they are justified.

You can’t stop this.

It Comes Back to Trust

What you can do is give your trust, and when your trust is broken you can create a warning system (3 strikes you are out) then pull that trust from that one employee. Don’t take it out on everyone else.

Most of your employees will be more loyal when they know that they have your trust and respect.

If you allow your employees to Twitter, blog, and Facebook while at work then it’s up to you to create some guidelines.

The idea is to create an open community of thoughts and ideas. When you allow your employees to share their thoughts with the world about your business, you will get honest feedback and a chance to reach out to the world with your people’s ideas.

Company Culture

Zappos encourages a fun, interactive, and creative culture. They want to develop relationships that stick. Read my interview with the CEO of Zappos Tony Hsieh right here. Zappos has some of the stickiest relationships with their customers.

I admit that tweeting and blogging isn’t for every company, but I do believe that every company should implement some kind of open forum for their employees to reach out to the community. We need to create a culture that allows people to let their personalities out.

Let’s stop hiding our people away form the public. Let everyone have a chance to influence the customer. The freedom to make connections that will build loyalty. It’s this marketing that pays forward in many directions. The employees feel trusted. The customer doesn’t feel abused (they opted in to the message). The company makes both employees and customers happy.

In the next post we will talk about freedom at work.

Want to catch up? Check out Part 1:

- Rehumanize Business

* Don’t miss out on any more great articles. Sign up for my RSS feed or email feed and you’ll stay updated on the latest tips and ideas to bring more happiness to your working life.

* Tony the CEO of Zappos wrote an enlightening piece called Your Culture Is Your Brand. It’s a must read for all business owners.

If you enjoyed this post then you will probably like this one too:

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Image courtesy of lowlevelrebel

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Too many businesses are worried about playing it safe. They don’t want to uncover the bad stuff that is happening in their business, so they look the other way instead. Human Resources is there to protect the company. Upper management only wants to know about positive sales figures.

Who can most employees turn to?

They don’t turn to anyone; they just leave.

I want to rehumanize (I borrowed the word from Chris Brogan) business so that people feel free to speak up. The only way business is going to become faster, more enjoyable and more profitable is if you have every person in your company and even your customers become a part of your marketing department. That means they tell their friends, family and their internet buddies that your products/services are awesome.

Eliminate Employee Criticism

A great way to reduce or eliminate badmouthing of the company by the employees is to give them the chance to talk about what is bothering them, listen to their concerns, and allow employees to be a part of the change.

BzzAgent’s CEO Dave Balter learned that his employees’ opinions mattered. They mattered so much that the whole company addresses everyone’s issues, from needing four pronged forks in the lunch room to discussing how they can communicate with clients better. He created an anonymous suggestion box that was open to everyone. This created an opportunity to listen to and address people’s problems.

There will be times when a company is unable to accommodate an employee, but most employees understand this. At least they had a chance to make their feelings heard.

Your company probably has a few disgruntled employees. Every company has them. If you aren’t listening to their needs, you are creating a divided culture.

Listening Skills

Think about what you can do to improve your listening skills and deal with your employees’ needs.

When a company stops treating their employees as dollar signs and actually allows them to direct the company, that company gains 1,000 paddles in the ocean pushing their message out to potential customers. Believe me, the money will flow back into the company. I promise. All it takes is a leap of faith.

In the next post we’ll talk about how to unleash every employee’s creative marketing beast.

* Are you on Twitter? Then join over 3,000 people who get my stress relief tips, happiness ideas, and thought provoking quotes. @workhappynow

* Gallup wrote an interesting piece called How to Bolster Employees’ Confidence. I’ll give you a hint, encouraging words matter.

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Image courtesy of CC Chapman

Download the Free eBook Work Happy the Google Way * Post from: Work Happy Now!

Relationships are built on trust. If I trust you to help me finish a project and you flake out on me, that trust is gone.

If you are a stand up person who sweats, bleeds, and cries by my side and also encourages me to be great than you’ve earned my trust. I’ll love you until the end of time.

This video was shot on my lunch hour because that morning I worked on a project with a group of guys I would go to business war with. They are smart, fun, and we get a lot accomplished. Yes, I’m talking about my day job. Hey, I’m doing this for you, so I can learn first hand how to make people happy at work.

We need to learn to build trust with our co-workers, bosses, and clients. That means being there and supporting them when they need it the most.

Now it’s time to watch the video and find out one more way to build better relationships at work.

* Want to be able to Kick Butt at Work and Be Happy Too then check out my teleseminar on February 23^rd to help you do amazing work that doesn’t stress you out. Click here to find out more details.

* One of my favorite books by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith is called Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust (Affiliate link to Amazon. If you end up buying a book. I’ll be able to buy a box of tea. A great way to keep me energized for a month.) The reason I like it so much is it’s ability to encourage all of us to earn trust. Without trust we can’t build the type of career that makes our moms proud.

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Download the Free eBook Work Happy the Google Way * Post from: Work Happy Now!