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During the Week of Work Happiness, from September 20 to 26, 2021, we as Employee Happiness Experts attended a number of webinars. Many questions - and even more tips - came up. We answer the most frequently asked questions about employee happiness based on our insights. How do you start increasing employee happiness within your organization? How do you get started in concrete terms and how do you continue to monitor this? This is new for many organizations, so read and learn!

FAQ #1: How do you start with employee happiness in a large organization?

Not everyone will be enthusiastic immediately. So focus on the people who are! With anything new, people want to see how it works out for others first. When early enthusiasts (aka ambassadors) show the benefits, the majority will naturally follow. Take on the role of an inspirer yourself, talk about employee happiness, organize or develop your own employee happiness session, but don't try to tackle it alone!

A second tip: if you want employee happiness to live in the organization, it already starts in the application process. Make sure you ask applicants what makes them happy. This way they immediately know that attention to this is central to the organization.

FAQ #2: How do I find happiness ambassadors in my organization?

Make your own selection for this. Find the people who get excited about employee happiness, who want to promote it, but who also like to involve others in this. These ambassadors are intrinsically motivated, open-minded and positive, so they are very likely to come up with ideas themselves. They provide valuable input so that they help you to make the organization happier.

FAQ #3: What can you do to promote employee happiness?

To promote employee happiness, you need to research what employee happiness means for your employees. What do you think is important to you? What makes you happy? And what gives you energy and what doesn't? Ask these questions not only to yourself, but also to your employees. It is important to map out what is fitting for the individual employee, so that the values of the organization can match. You have to provide customization in this process. Continuously engage in conversation with your department, your team and your colleagues. Employee happiness looks different for everyone. For some, a lot of autonomy is a great source of happiness, for others appreciation is very important.

To promote employee happiness, you have to make it visible! Hang a schedule on the wall with everything employees mentioned during an employee satisfaction survey or pulse survey. What do they need to be happy? This not only helps people remember what makes them happy, but it also shows that you are paying attention. Showing that input is valued and taken seriously is already a great step to promote employee happiness.

Continuously collecting feedback with 2DAYSMOOD's quick surveys contributes to this. Let employees share their positive experiences. Everything you give attention, grows!

FAQ #4: How do I create support for employee happiness (with management)?

Sometimes just the word “employee happiness” or “happiness” in itself evokes resistance. Because what exactly is happiness? For many it is a vague, elusive concept. Does employee happiness sound too soft? Choose another term that does fit within your organization. It doesn't matter what you call it, as long as the effect is the same: more energy and fun for employees. Think, for example, of "job satisfaction", "Employee Experience", "Sustainable Employment" or link the core values of the organization to this theme.

In order to create support, the strategy of your organization must match this. Where does the organization want to go? What are the short and long term goals? And how does attention to employee happiness contribute to this? Make it a business case. How high is your absenteeism now? How many vacancies are difficult to fill?

We can do it, but do we really want to? That is the main question to be answered.

Influence of leadership on employee happiness

Finally, we also heard this question: “Why should managers get started with employee happiness?”

We answer this question with another question: “Why shouldn't executives get started with employee happiness?” Do you not have time, are you too busy, or do you feel like it's not your job? Those are common excuses. And that resistance is understandable. There is often no confidence that an investment in employee happiness will pay off. Yet research shows that happy employees:

  • Work more effectively;
  • Work more efficiently;
  • Deliver qualitatively better work;
  • Call in sick less often;
  • Stay with their organization.

In short, the time you spend on employee happiness is not lost on absenteeism or looking for new people. In addition, a happy employee does more in an hour than an unhappy employee.

So why not get started with employee happiness? There are so many benefits!

As a manager, you influence many aspects to which employees attribute happiness. Think, for example, of feeling valued and respected, experiencing freedom and trust in work or being given freedom and space at work. These are already important reasons why people are happy at work.

But when employees report being unhappy at work, the supervisor is often one of the top three reasons. However, if employees indicate that they are happy at work, the manager is often not even in the top 10 reasons. In that respect, it seems that you are doing your job well as a manager, if you do not stand out. (Monitorgroup, 2021)

How do you ensure that you are a leader that everyone can get along with? Keep asking for feedback. Everyone has different needs. Some want clear structures and orders, others want to organize their own work. It is very important to be able to switch leadership style. Process-oriented leadership in people who thrive in people-oriented leadership is like water and fire. Do you find it difficult to switch styles? Keep trying! Ultimately, you develop different styles so that you can motivate and inspire everyone.

To make employee happiness measurable, 2DAYSMOOD has developed 15 drivers in collaboration with Utrecht University. In this way you get a clear picture of employee happiness in your organization. As a result, you also know exactly which drivers you need to work on.

Do you want to get started with happiness at work in your organization or team? Then take a look at 2DAYSMOOD's innovative, fast and fun tool for data-driven insight into employee happiness!

 

This blog was written by Manou de Koning, Tim Reumer and Robin van der Meulen

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Happy employees make happy customers

These (HR) managers use 2DAYSMOOD and make real impact!

How? Our measuring method is the renewed employee survey, because it’s faster, easier and science based. A continuous source of data with which you can improve your (team) culture step-by-step and increase employee happiness. In short, that is profitable for your organization!

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Jan-Herman Hanskamp

HR director, Royal Rotra Group
"2DAYSMOOD is highly valuable, because you gain continuous insight into your company culture, collect targeted feedback and are able to see trends."
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Emma Sluman

Project manager sustainable employability, ProRail
"Since we use 2DAYSMOOD every week, we have more grip on our culture. For instance, the experience of workload and what drives employees."
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Rita Blankenberg

HR Business Partner Digital, Municipality Alphen a/d Rijn
“The look and feel is happy and the data is useful. For example, the continuous feedback divided into teams, shows you exactly what you can improve.”
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Robin Gerritsen

Director Recruitment, Tempo-Team (Randstad)
“Firstly the number of happy employees has increased from 66% to 80% in five months. And secondly we continue to see a positive trend!”

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Dr. Marvin Deitz

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