Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Sean Conrad of the Halogen blog

A lot of employees and managers experience performance appraisals as a negative process. This is true even for employees who are generally good performers. At the core, the reason why we experience performance appraisals negatively is because we are being judged and rated by another.

But you could change the whole experience and improve the business value of performance appraisals simply by changing their focus. What if the goal of your performance appraisal process was to find way to encourage and inspire people to be happy at work and to be their best, rather than to critique, rate and rank them?

There are several things an individual manager or better yet an entire organization can do to make performance appraisals a positive experience that encourages and inspires:

Start by Getting Their Perspective

It’s important to begin your performance appraisal process with your employee’s perspective. Invite them to tell you about their accomplishments, performance, successes and challenges. You can do this by getting them to complete a self-appraisal before you write their appraisal.

You can also do this by having them to keep a performance journal year round or by providing you with short weekly or monthly reports. The important thing is to get them to reflect on what they’ve done, how they’ve done, what makes them happy, what inspires their best performance and to share this information with you. This gives them an active and important role in the performance appraisal process and gives you both information for a meaningful dialogue.

Focus on the Positives

Whoever said that performance appraisals had to be about providing negative feedback on areas of low or poor performance? Why not focus on the positive? Use the opportunity to give your employee feedback on all the great things they’ve done. Give them specific examples, touch on the “how” as well as the “what” they did well, and let them know how that impacted the team, department or organization in a positive way. Positive feedback about our successes is a great motivator, and tends to encourage more great performance. This doesn’t mean you don’t take time to discuss areas where performance is lacking; it just means you broaden your focus and give your employee a more balanced perspective.

Of course, you shouldn’t limit your positive feedback to performance appraisal time. Make sure you give your employees positive feedback on good performance on a weekly basis.

Identify the Root Causes of Happiness and High Performance

Invite your employees to reflect on why they excelled in a particular area or at a particular task, as well as the times they were truly happy at work. What were the “conditions” that supported their success or happiness? Did the work ignite their passion? Did it open up new avenues for creativity? Was it the mix of people on a project or team that brought out their best? Did it invite them to learn new skills or apply old ones in a new way?

By identifying and understanding the root causes of happiness and high performance, we can then try to recreate these conditions as much as is possible or practical. You can’t guarantee that you’ll always be able to provide your employee with work that is fun and engaging, but if you don’t know what makes them “sing” how can you ever hope to encourage that?

Take the Focus Off the Ratings

Ever thought of conducting performance appraisals without ratings? When we assign numbers to performance, we judge others. While it might be helpful to ask the employee to rate their performance, if we want the performance appraisal to be a positive experience and help them be happy in their work, the focus should be on helping them improve, succeed and be happy in their work, not on the ratings. Instead of numbers, the focus should be on:

> What successes they had

> What contributed to their success

> Their career interests

> Skills or areas they would like to further develop

> Things they need to support their performance and success

> Things at work that contribute to their happiness

> Things at work that contribute to their unhappiness

The manager’s role should be to coach and support, not judge. To encourage this, you can do away with numerical ratings all together, or move to a simplified 2 or 3 point scale that serves as an indicator.

Foster Personal Development

You can also make performance appraisals a happier, more pleasant experience by making development planning an integral part of your performance appraisal process. Every employee should be encouraged and supported in their development, helping improve their performance and preparing them for career advancement. Development plans shouldn’t just be assigned to address “performance gaps”. They should focus on enhancing or broadening an employee’s skills, experience and expertise. Here again, you should look at the kinds of work that make the employee happiest and where they perform best. How can you help them expand and develop further in these areas?

You should also invite your employee to reflect on and identify their preferred learning style, and look for development activities that suit that style. Think beyond traditional training courses to include a variety of learning activities like job shadowing, reading, podcasts, volunteer activities, mentoring, on the job training given by another employee, webinars, etc. For example, if an employee hates reading, and learns best by doing, don’t assign them books to read; look for on the job training experiences or hands-on learning activities for them. That way you set them up for success.

Conclusion

Employee performance appraisals don’t have to be a dreaded task that creates anxiety and animosity between managers and staff. With the right positive focus and approach, they can be a powerful tool for nurturing happiness and high performance.

Your Turn

Have you ever had or given a performance review that left you more motivated?

Sean Conrad is a happy employee at Halogen Software, a market leading vendor of performance appraisal software. His passion is helping managers adopt talent management best practices. You can read more of his posts on the Halogen blog.

* 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.

* Staying focused on one task at a time is not easy. Especially if you are like me and like to hop all around. Stacey over at Mom Renewal has a great guest post on single tasking that most of you need to read.

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> Rehumanize Business – Part 1

> Unleash Employees’ Inner Creative Marketing Talents – Rehumanize Business Part 2

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

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

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:

- Work Happiness Expert – Tony Hsieh of Zappos
- Make Every Employee Feel Cool

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

I posted on Twitter about the importance of rewarding your co-workers. I love Twitter, by the way. The ability to connect with fun, smart and quirky people is brilliant.

A friend on Twitter told me that she likes to create tags for her co-workers.

I asked her what she meant and she explained that she likes to give out random acts of kindness to the people she works with. She draws beautiful pictures on pricing tags. She sent me these photos so I could share them with you.

This is what she said about this work happiness technique:

I give them to the “benefits team” I make 15 every month and everyone gets one ( this includes 2 managers and one supervisor and 2 contract” men” and other counselors like me!), sometimes they are all the same and sometimes they vary a little depending on what supplies I have.  They started out as a RAK -random act of kindness- in February and now have evolved into a coveted work happiness. It really is the little things in life that ease the way.  So silly as it may seem they are not silly at all.

Just the other day the boss asked if we will continue this tradition into the New Year? And of course I said why not. She was thinking of ways to display them  right now they reside on each office’s door we have little 3M message boards with sticky stuff on top (they stick great) and white board on the bottom.

By refusing to wait for our boss and/or co-workers to make us happy, we can take control of our own happiness. And when we have the control, we start creating happiness for others.

It’s all about feeling good. We may as well spread the joy.

Thank you Tamara for supplying the images. This post wouldn’t have had the impact without them.

* Want to build better relationships at work? Then sign up for the 10 Week Work Happy Now eCourse. (Sign up is in the top left corner). You’ll receive a new lesson in your inbox every Monday.

* Naomi of Ittybiz has a brilliant series about goals. My favorite so far is Batshit Crazy: Creative Ways To Meet Your Goals. It’s a must read, especially if you made a resolution to start off the New Year.

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

I shared a drink with a friend who manages a team of five people. He was wondering how people’s moods can fluctuate in such a broad range, which affects the quality of their work. One of his employees is always up and down. He is engaged with his work one week and then he seems to lose interest. His interest fluctuates and he isn’t sure why.

We all have this problem it’s just that most of us force ourselves to stay focused. My friend told me that he has tried giving this employee various kinds of work to see what interests him, but that didn’t work either.

I asked him if he ever sits down with his staff to explain the reasoning behind the work.

He said he didn’t. He never really thought of that because it’s pretty obvious to him. They need to design websites that exceed the customer’s expectations.

He was losing out on a huge opportunity. People often stop looking at the larger picture because they get comfortable. This comfortable feeling reduces their desire to go above and beyond the normal effort.

A study at the University of Alberta showed that people need a sense of purpose in order to feel engaged with their work. A ‘Spirit at Work’ intervention program for a group of long-term health-care workers boosted morale and job retention. This program urged employees to rethink their job, which reduced absenteeism by 60% and turnover by 75%.

“We discovered that people who are able to find meaning and purpose in their work, and can see how they make a difference through that work, are healthier, happier and more productive employees,” said Val Kinjerski, a University of Alberta PhD graduate who co-authored the study.
- E-science news gathered this information from the Journal of Gerontological Nursing.

By helping your people understand why they do what they do – you can increase happiness and productivity.

I’m going to give you a few ideas that might help your employees/coworkers to connect with their work.

Create Your Own Spirit at Work Intervention Program

1. Talk about positive stories
2. Have people share positive stories to be compiled for other employees
3. Listen to customer feedback
4. Find out what improvements your people would like to implement
5. Ask your employees how they want to celebrate great results

Your organization has an opportunity to create happier and more engaged workers with these easy to apply secrets that everyone should know, but many aren’t willing to try.

1. Talk about positive stories

Your organization has many stories of how employees solved problems, helped others in need, and other ways in which they went above and beyond to make someone happy. However, a lot of us like to play the modesty card. We hesitate to flaunt our achievements.

Wrong. So wrong. You need to flaunt your greatness; it’s a must.

A client recently told me about how I helped her feel happier. She explained that drugs that she took to keep her emotionally balanced didn’t help, but my site did. She thanked me profusely. (I put her quote on my hire me – coaching page.) I sent the email to my wife. I think Nikki got a better understanding of what I’m trying to do with this blog. Since she edits all of my writing I need her to feel engaged with the work, so we keep putting out the best content to help the readers of this blog.

You have to share similar stories with each other. Talk about how a customer gushed over your attention to detail. It shows the rest of your co-workers why you do what you do. Most of you aren’t working just for the paycheck. You are also working because you make a difference in people’s lives.

2. Have people share positive stories to be compiled for other employees

So now that you have all these positive stories, you should compile them in a central location. That means keeping emails from customers/clients and that also means writing down stories from employees.

I keep every positive email from my readers. Whenever I feel like my mood is low, I can always go into the archives and remind myself why I need to stay motivated.

The more stories an organization can compile the more powerful it becomes. If your organization is huge, then break it down into departments. Even departments such as marketing and accounting need to compile stories. These stories may be more internal, but it’s still important to document what is happening so you can link to why you do what you do.

3. Listen to Customer Feedback

In order to stay engaged in our work, we have to recognize our mistakes and understand how to fix them. By listening to customer feedback, an organization is taking the time to understand their mistakes and correct them.

I have known many people who like to solve problems. They get an energy boost from making a solution happen. I used to work at K-Mart, and one day a woman came into the store asking for a patio umbrella that wasn’t in stock. The salesperson called 4 different stores before she found the lady’s umbrella.

I remember when the lady came into the store to pick up the umbrella. She was gushing because it was the only one that fit her patio furniture.

You could see the manager beaming with pride.

You need to give your people a chance to create solutions so they can feel like they are a super hero.

4. Find out what improvements your people would like to implement

If you can listen to customers’ needs then it’s time to listen to employees’ needs. Your employees are at their most creative when they are trying to fix problems.

I worked for a company in which the employees had so many good ideas, but the manager never listened. We would be sitting in the lunch room and three different people would share ideas that sounded great to me. I asked them if they tried to talk to Alex about it and they said yes, but he told them to email him. They did and they never heard about the idea again. They got so disheartened that they stopped trying.

Your organization employs smart people, otherwise they probably wouldn’t hold the positions that they do. They just need a chance to unleash that creativity and wow the customer.

5. Ask your employees how they want to celebrate great results

Every company is capable of achieving great results, especially if they’ve been around for more than a few years. If your organization is ho hum about the results that do occur, your people may stop trying.

People want to know that what they do matters. That means celebrating all the good things.

This should be done in large and small groups. The larger gatherings can occur about 1-4 times a year, while the smaller groups (celebrations by department) should be done more often.

When you allow your people to dictate how they want to celebrate, they are less likely to find fault with the celebration.

Making your celebration a regular routine is the key, because you want to make a habit out of celebrating your successes. For the first month, try celebrating every week. Then have a celebration only once a month to keep things from getting stale. If you overload people and celebrate too often, they will get bored and also be unable to find reasons to rejoice in their hard work.

To avoid allowing this practice to fall away, it’s important to make the celebration fun. That might mean bringing food, letting people joke around, and finding other ideas that get people excited about attending.

Why It Works

After implementing these secrets for about a year, assess how these changes affect your organization. You will probably notice that people are more engaged and willing to try a little harder to meet each other’s needs as well as the needs of the customer.

These techniques will work for most companies. The companies that do fail usually do so because they don’t make this practice a habit. It needs to become part of the culture, so when something difficult happens there are techniques to fall back on. And when something great happens everyone dances on their desks, feeling proud of their effort.

Are you on Twitter? Then check me out at @workhappynow. I give stress relief tips, happiness ideas, and cool quotes that save the day.

***

As many of you know I’m a recent father and I’m not a big fan of father blogs, but I am a big fan of Sean’s Writer Dad. I love his writing style and flair for a story. Check out one of my recent favorites, The Mothers and Fathers of Tomorrow.

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Image courtesy of (cup)cake_eater

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

Jeff Sloan, co-founder of Start-up Nation, talked at a Microsoft conference about creating your own business. He is a serial entrepreneur of electronics and various other media.

Jeff and his brother were promoting one of their gadgets at a conference and they bumped into a woman who was juggling, so they started juggling with her. They got to talking with the woman and hashed out a distributorship to sell the juggling balls throughout North America.

Their juggling package was the number 1 item sold for Father’s Day back in 1992.

They positioned their product as “Stress Relief for the Busy Executive.” An item that has been around since the pyramids in Egypt was the best selling product for fathers in the US. Jeff was able to do this because of a relationship that he created with the department stores.

Building relationships

He went into all the major department stores that were willing to sell his juggling kit and attended their crack of dawn staff meetings before the store opened. Jeff told the group that they weren’t going to have a regular meeting.

He dumped the balls out onto the table. As the balls rolled around on the table and fell to the ground, he smiled and explained to them that they were going to learn to juggle.

Imagine a man walking into your staff meeting with this big brown box in his hands and everyone is just waiting to hear what he has to say. You expect him to give some motivational speech about sales quotas, but he just stands there. He opens one flap of the box, pushes the box on its side and balls of every color come rolling out.

The smiles light up on everyone’s faces.

He announces that everyone will learn to juggle during this meeting.

I bet they had a blast with this fantastic team building exercise.

After that meeting, when customers came into the store, the employees had this great memory of how much fun they had learning to juggle. They gladly promoted the product.

The store made gains and so did the employees.

What you can do

So why not get your employees together once a month to learn a new skill? Create one around selling products or learning people skills. Whatever brings people together and makes them laugh.

Not every meeting needs to be business related. You can make the gathering “just plain fun” once every quarter. There should be no strict agenda, just a chance to gather, create and laugh.

You can start off with juggling. Even if no one knows how to juggle, you can watch a video on how to juggle on YouTube. You’ll create laughter, fun and best of all – you will build relationships. You’ll find that some employees will pick it up quickly and start helping their co-workers learn how to juggle.

This will build trust and confidence.

Create a teaching and learning environment and you’ll develop a company that will nurture each others growth.

How about you?

What was the best team building exercise you’ve ever been a part of?

Help a co-worker today and send them to the Happy at Work Project. Have them get started on taking their happiness and success to the next level.

***

I was honored by Justice E-learning as one of the Top 50 Career Management Bloggers. Check it out. It’s a good list and not just because I’m on it.

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***

Image courtesy of hans s

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

I love a forward thinking company. Artesano is definitely that. They are making honey (mead) wine from start to finish.

They make everything from scratch. They let the bees make the honey (Yes, they have their own bee farm in Vermont). They believe in high quality ingredients and excellent taste.

When I contacted Nichole, one of the owners, about helping them with their work happiness, I wasn’t sure what to expect. She was excited about the concept; I didn’t even have to do the hard sell.

We held the seminar on Sunday. Yes, I work on Sundays if that’s the best time for my client. Read their testimonial about my presentation – Karl Staib Presents His Work Happy Now Message.

I’m writing about this teleconference I did with Artesano because I want to put more emphasis on the work that I do with companies. You all know how important work happiness is to a company’s culture, especially a young company like Artesano.

Happy workers are often better communicators and they tend to stick around longer and show more loyalty to their company, to name a few reasons.

I have a good feeling Artesano will be around a long time, making their employees and customers happy.

If you think your company needs some more happiness infused into its culture, then contact me and let’s see what we can do to bring a little more productivity and joy to you and your co-workers.

If you want a quick does of work happiness then follow me on Twitter (@workhappynow). I promise to exceed expectations.

***

Brian Clark of CopyBlogger is opening back up one of the best make money online programs - Teaching Sells. If you have knowledge that few people have then it’s time to figure out how to make some good money off of it. Help yourself and the rest of the world. That’s working happy at it’s best.

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

Netflix believes in creating a culture that supports Freedom and Responsibility. They don’t promote to placate or keep people around out of loyalty. They know they have to make people happy and in order to do that they need to challenge and engage their employees.

Seven Aspects of Netflix Culture:

• Values are what we Value
• High Performance
• Freedom & Responsibility
• Context, not Control
• Highly Aligned, Loosely Coupled
• Pay Top of the Market
• Promotions & Development

(Sorry about the formatting of these next few sentences. This slide has some weird code in it)

Check out the Happy at Work Project and see how your views align with you company’s views. The closer your values align with the company’s, the more enjoyable it is to work with them.

***

Stephen of the Rat Race Trap talks about work and personal development on his site. It’s a must-read for someone seeking something better in their life.

If you liked this article then check out these articles:

• Does Your Company Need an Extreme Makeover?
• How do I make my people happy?
• Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It, Book Review

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

You probably already know if your company needs to change its culture. You can feel it in your gut. So why don’t companies take steps to improve when it’s clear that change is needed?

Instead, most companies keep going along with the same techniques year after year, ultimatly, making the company culture worse. There are only so many times a person can attend the same old training begin to feel nauseous. I’ve literally felt dizzy during a meeting because it was so repetitive and tedious. I couldn’t believe that management could be so out of touch with their employees.

Most of you have probably worked for a company like this. All you can do is shake your head at most of the decisions and wonder why they don’t care about your opinion.

A Story to Which We can All Relate

I once worked for a company that didn’t listen to its employees at all. The people grumbled and moaned then eventually left. The turnover rate was through the roof. Way over 10% a year.

It didn’t have to be that way. If only they would have implemented a few of the employees’ ideas, it probably that would have helped the company’s bottom line and made the employees the employees happier.

I remember one employee who told me about a marketing idea he proposed to his boss. He wanted to create a small club of dedicated customers who would help spread the word at marketing events. We had a core group of customers who loved us and it would have been easy. His boss didn’t like the idea because it would take the control out of the hands of marketing.

“Who knows what these customers will say at these events,” was his reply.

He explained that although we would be relinquishing some control, these people were dedicated to the company and would never do anything to damage the company’s reputation.

He cited other companies who were doing the same thing, but he was still rejected.

This employee left two months later.

I know you don’t want your company to make these same mistakes, so I’ve compiled 6 warning signs that your company culture needs a change.

1. Turnover is higher than 6% a year

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2006), the average turnover rate in the U.S was between 3.2% and 3.6%.

If your company has 40 employees and more than 2 or 3 people are coming and going each year, you might have a problem. Of course there are times when circumstances can inflate these numbers, especially if there are a coincidence of family issues. This can’t be helped. What can be helped is when employees leave because they aren’t happy. Any company culture can be changed. I’ll admit that the bigger a company is the harder it will be, but it’s not impossible.

2. Rumors spread like wild fire

A company that doesn’t address issues will have rumors running rampant throughout its organization. An open and honest dialogue with employees will prevent a lot of bad gossip.

Negative company gossip can fuel the emotions of the employees and make them afraid of what could happen. Their imaginations take over when they don’t have access to the right information.

Every company must create a support system in each department. An attentive manager will notice when his/her employees are spreading rumors. If this is happening s/he must have all the information from management to give to his/her staff. The more information they have about a problem, the less likely it will be that wild imaginations will create the story.

3. Employees stop complaining to management

When an employee gives up, they’ve probably stopped caring. That usually means they stop complaining and stop trying to make the culture better.

You know the difference between good complaining and bad. The good complaining points out a problem that needs attention.

The best way to prioritize employee feedback is to reach out and ask what needs improvement, and then actually do something about it. There are too many companies that ask and don’t actually implement the changes.

4. Your sales have declined or flat-lined

Studies have proven that 70% of a company’s business comes from word of mouth. When a customer loves you, they will tell everyone about you.

The best way to build customer loyalty is to have employees build great relationships with their customers.

You can do this by encouraging friendship building amongst your employees. That may mean creating a program that encourages interaction. One of my favorite ideas is a “thank you” Thursday. Every employee sends out 5 – 10 thank you cards every Thursday to show the customers appreciation.

The best part is about this technique is that it makes both sides, employee and customer, feel good. The employee releases positive feelings by showing appreciation to their customer. The customer loves receiving the adulation.

Creating positive relationships will increase customer word of mouth

5. Employees don’t hang out outside of work

Zappos does everything it can to encourage its managers and employees to hang out with each other. They actually put a percentage on it. They want managers to use 20% of their time to get to know their employees.

The more friends an employee has at work, the less likely they are to feel unhappy with their job. A strong network of friends makes an employee feel safe and happy.

If your employees are all going straight home after work then it’s a sign that they don’t feel connected to the people with whom they work with.

A company should create various opportunities for their employees to hang out outside of work by hosting functions and encouraging employees to go out and have fun.

6. Creativity Slows to a Crawl

Some companies use fear to run an organization. They don’t want to take too many risks because of the potential of lost revenue. What occurs in this fear based company is stifled thought. Employees would rather not bring up an idea because they are afraid of rejection.

A company needs to constantly innovate to stay ahead of competitors. That means trying some weird and maybe crazy ideas.

I worked for a company that sold expensive industrial products. Since the opening of the business, they advertised the same way. They sold the same way. They interacted with the customers the same way.

What they got was the same results.

A company must try new things to keep themselves and their customers interested in the product/service. You may have heard about the TV show AqueTeen Hunger Force’s advertising campaign that used lightbrights to create a buzz around Boston. It actually caused a scare in the community because they created strange boxes and put them in remote locations. It worried quite a few Bostonians who thought they might be bombs.

This may be an extreme example, but they tried to push outside of their normal sphere of advertising. It worked. The word of mouth spread throughout the rest of the country.

Your company can be innovative in various ways. There are always a few people in any organization who are willing to try unique ways to create more innovative products/services/marketing/customer relations. Try asking your employees about ways to expand outside of the company’s comfort zones. It will make the employees happy as well as reach new customers.

Wrap-Up

There are usually small signs within every company that expose a need for a culture change. These are just six examples that are very important to keep your eye on.

If you can catch these problems early, you have a good shot at turning the atmosphere around quickly.

What do you notice in your organization? Are there other signs that change is necessary? Let us know so we can keep the conversation going.

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Jonathan Mead of Illuminated Mind is someone that I’ve been learning a lot from. I love his fresh angles that make me think differently about my own life.

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The Happy at Work Project has gone very well. Looking at the stats, over 500 people have downloaded the free PDF and the response to my Work Happy Now weekly calendar has been wonderful. If you would like me to send it to you, just go to my contact page or send me an email to karl (AT) workhappynow (DOT) com and type in “WHN Calendar”.

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If you liked this article then you may like:

• How do I make my people happy?
• Make Every Employee Feel Cool
• Your Company Should Do Annual Career Counseling

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

This is a guest post from Drew Tarvin

When I first started in the corporate world, I didn’t realize how little my fellow employees laughed.  It wasn’t until I started doing corporate stand-up gigs that I noticed the distinct lack of chuckles, giggles, and guffaws in the workplace.  The question is, why is laughter missing?

Stand-Up or Sit Down

After my very first corporate stand-up show, I thought I did terrible.  No one had laughed as much as they did in the comedy clubs, and it didn’t seem like my jokes resonated with the audience.  But after the show, the other comedian I performed with (a veteran on the corporate circuit) congratulated me, saying he was impressed with how well I did.  I chalked it up to him trying to spare my feelings.

But then a number of audience members came up to me after the show, thanking me for performing and even quoting their favorite lines.  I still wouldn’t have believed I had done a good job, but a few months later the same group booked me to do another show–the ultimate sign that they were satisfied with the show (or were sado-masichists).

Over time, I realized it wasn’t just in that show that people weren’t laughing.  I started wondering where all the laughter was in the office.  We spend upwards of 40% of our waking hours at work, shouldn’t it be a little fun?  But that’s not the culture at many places, and as a result, people don’t laugh.  Why?

1) They Think It’s Inappropriate

The biggest reason why most people don’t laugh at work is that for some reason they think it’s inappropriate.  Even if something genuinely funny happens, they are in the “corporate-mode” where everything is “business, business, business” and they refuse to laugh.

The reality is that there are only a few situations where laughter is inappropriate–during the process of layoffs, in the middle of an important company announcement, or after your boss’ rival says a joke.  But during a regular meeting or while reading our email, these are times where we should feel free to laugh if we desire or are inspired to do so.

2) They Fear What Others Think

I thought that people obsessing over what others thought of them would end in High School, but it is ever-present in the corporate world.  And while it is important to consider your image and reputation, many people get caught up in what their peers, managers, and direct reports think of them.

To laugh at something is a revelation of our personality.  It tells others what we think is funny, and that scares people.  If you are in a meeting with your manager and someone makes a joke, the tendency is to check in with your manager to see if she thinks it’s funny–if she laughs, surely it’s OK for you to laugh.  The problem is that your manager is doing the same thing.  She is either checking in with other people in the room, or even back with you–after all, managers are (semi) normal people too, and they have the same insecurities as the rest of us.

3) They Don’t Have Much to Laugh At

The sad reality is that for many employees, they just don’t have much to laugh at during work.  Their training sessions are filled with boring diagrams, monotonous speakers, and they experience death by PowerPoint.  All of their emails are strictly related to work, written as concisely as possible but still filled with useless and definitely unfunny jargon.

Too few of us work to incorporate humor into the workplace.  Perhaps it’s a “chicken and the egg” problem–why would people attempt humor when no one at work will laugh?  But as a result, we hide our true personalities and we soon become an office of boring robots.

4) They Aren’t Used to It

Even when someone tries to attempt humor, there isn’t always a laughter response.  That’s because people aren’t used to it–they aren’t used to having humor at work, or laughing during the hours of 9-5.

Culture plays a large role.  The companies or departments that do have fun and are constantly laughing, actively work to use humor on a consistent basis and people get used to the idea that they can have fun at work.  The oft-cited company Southwest Airlines has made it part of their mission statement to have fun, and from top to bottom employees get used to laughing.

How to Get People to Laugh at Work

An interesting thing happened during the second show I did with the above mentioned group–the laughter was louder and more frequent.  Maybe my material was stronger the second time, or my performance was better.  Or maybe the group was ready to laugh:

1. They knew it wasn’t inappropriate because it was a stand-up show.
2. They weren’t afraid because they had already laughed a little bit last time and other people had talked about enjoying the show.
3. They had something to laugh at (either my material or my failed attempts at humor).
4. They were used to it from the last show, and the fact that they were having a second one suggested that it was certainly encouraged.

And that’s what it takes to break the stigma against laughing and increase laughter in the workplace.  Creating a culture where people know it’s OK to laugh (and encouraged); throwing unnecessary caution into the wind and laughing at what’s funny; giving co-workers something to laugh at; and doing it consistently.

Drew Tarvin is a stand-up, improv, and sketch humorist and the author of Humor That Works.  You can subscribe to his newsletter or follow him on Twitter @HumorThatWorks.

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In my research on humor in the workplace, I found another blog that gives some great information on how important it is to laugh at work. Michael Kerr of Humour at Work.

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If you are looking to bring some more laughter and smiles into your workplace, then check out the Happy at Work Project and start building your work happiness today.

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If you liked this article then check out:

• 55 Tips to Make Work More Fun
• 5 Fun and Easy Tips to Let the “Real You” Shine Through at Work, Southwest Airlines Style
• Why Your Company Should Budget for a Fun Work Environment

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