Step Seven - Happiness at Work - a thing that actually exists!
But if not, read on, as so many workplaces are not happy places to be, which is a shame, and something you need to do something about.
I've recently been working with a company called Happy to help them market their Happy People courses.
As well as being an IT training company, Happy also teaches people how to be better managers by focusing on making their staff happy. They have written a book called The Happy Manifesto, all about why happiness at work is important.
Imagine if your manager's sole focus was making you feel happy, supported and inspired every day - how would that feel?
Sounds a bit Californian doesn't it? But here are some facts that may make you realise it could work for you, and not just some whizz-kids sipping wheat-grass juice and zipping around on scooters at Google HQ in Silicon Valley.
1. Happier people are more productive. Nando's did some research to find out why some branches were more productive than others. They tested loads of different variables - location, number of staff etc, and came up with one that correlated most closely with increased production. That was: how happy staff said they were in their annual staff survey. For a while, Nando's even changed the structure of managers' bonuses so that they were based on the happiness of staff.
2. If you'd invested in the companies voted "Best Places to Work" for the last 25 years, you'd have made much more money than if you'd simply placed your money in standard stock-market shares. See this research done by Wharton Business School in Pennsylvania. Happier workers make for more successful businesses - and this is a hard fact supported by research, not just 'a bunch of tree-hugging hippy crap' - as Cartman would say.
3. Happy staff are more likely to be loyal, flexible and a good advert for your business. They keep down the cost of recruitment, take less time off sick and are more helpful when dealing with top clients, because they genuinely want to help. Surely this is better than a room full of grumpy misanthropes, clock-watching and undermining each other to get ahead?
Sounds obvious when you look at it like that, doesn't it? So why isn't more of your manager's time spent making you happy? Slip a copy of the Happy Manifesto (you can download it for free from this link, god, I'm good to you!) to your manager, or spend some time making other people feel good - maybe by instigating a tea round, remembering someone's birthday or walking to someone's desk to personally thank them for their help, rather than sending a quick impersonal email.
You already know how things could be better at your workplace. Try pushing things in that direction, and if it's not working, think about whether that's a place you really want to work.
The general bullying, willy-waggling buck-passing culture of most newsrooms is the reason I started my own company in the first place. I really like being in charge, but I'm not very good at sucking up to bosses, especially if I disagree with the way they're doing things. So, it was clear that since there was no chance of becoming the boss any time soon, there was only one thing for it, I had to be my own boss. And, it's one of the best things I've ever done. My company is based on my two cardinal rules:
- For clients - I will do what I say I'm going to do
- For me - I will only work with people I like, who are good at their jobs
And it seems to have worked so far, so you don't need a lot of rules, just a few that are important to you.
Top Tip: Think about going it alone
Take five minutes to think about the kind of work you'd like to do, and the kind of people you'd like to work with. You may not have the freedom to quit your job, but you may have the power to make a change internally at your place of work. Just try being nicer to the nice people for a few days - at least it'll be an interesting experiment. Let me know how it goes! And, keep passing round that Happy Manifesto.
