Month: September 2011

Last week I was interviewed about alcohol in the workplace and more specifically the time-honored Danish tradition of occasionally having a beer after work in the workplace with your co-workers.

I’m all for it as a way to create and strengthen workplace relations.

I realize that there are countries or workplaces where you couldn’t possibly have a beer in the workplace for cultural, religious or other reasons. In that case a cup of tea or coffee after work might do the trick. The main point is to find a way to get to know your co-workers as people instead of just as professionals.

In Denmark there are rarely any barriers to having a beer after work. Mogens Nørgård, the CEO of Danish IT company Miracle just told me about his company’s alcohol policy which is this:

“There must always be good beer in the fridge.”

And of course there’s Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote:

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

Your take

Does your workplace allow for the occasional beer around quitting time? Is this something you enjoy or prefer to avoid? What other ways do you enjoy to get to know the people you work with as more than just professionals and co-workers?

In this short video Colleen Barrett, former president of Southwest Airlines, shares some of the tricky (and hilarious) ways they screen job applicants for sense of humor.

I’d love to see way more companies do things like this to ensure a good cultural fit for new hires. The fact is that not every person will fit into every workplace culture and there is currently way too much focus on professional skills and way too little on personality fit.

The Southwest hiring mantra “Hire for attitude, train for skill” has served them well over the years and we’ve seen many other happy workplaces introduce similar approaches.

British sandwich chain Pret a Manger put it like this:

“You can’t hire someone who can make sandwiches and teach them to be happy,” says Jay, “So we hire happy people and teach them to make sandwiches”.

Your take

When you were hired was there any focus on cultural fit? Does your workplace generally try to hire happy people or is the focus mostly on professional skills? What mix do you prefer between professional and cultural fit when new people are hired?

Richard Branson recently blogged about the Virgin Stars of the Year Awards – and I gotta say it looks like a fun affair :o)

Sir Richard sums up his philosophy in this way:

I have always believed that the way you treat your employees is the way they will treat your customers, and that people flourish if they’re praised.

These are people who have gone above and beyond in their everyday jobs to make a real difference. I was delighted to meet so many interesting and outstanding individuals and reward them for their hard work.

The event is always one of the highlights in the Virgin Group calendar and a chance to highlight what we are doing right and also learn how we can improve in the future.

This is exactly what businesses need more of and it’s a consistent practice of happy workplaces that they celebrate the people who do something extra. We’ve seen this at workplaces like Disney, Souhtwest Airlines, Zappos, Google and many others.

Unfortunately, many workplaces simply don’t notice when people do stellar work. In other words, if you do great work you won’t hear a word but the moment you screw up or don’t perform adequately, you may be punished.

Of course we should fix mistakes and help people who are underperforming in the workplace, but we can learn as much (or more) from our successes victories.

And that’s why celebrating great performance and great people is one of the hallmarks of happy workplaces.

Your take

How does you workplace celebrate great performance or great people? Do you do it at all? What would you say is the ratio between fixing the bad and celebrating the good? What ratio would you prefer?

Answer: Yes – if you’re in Denmark.

For everyone fortunate enough to live in the homeland of Hans Christian Andersen, we have just opened Arbejdsglædeshoppen, our online store featuring all our physical products. We’ve got books, posters, games, pens, coffee mugs, Steve Shapiro’s amazing personality poker cards and much, much more.

Visit Arbejdsglædeshoppen and check it out for yourself.

Announcement in Danish:
Så åbner Arbejdsglædeshoppen, en online butik med masser af sjove, praktiske ting, som du kan bruge til at skabe mere arbejdsglæde. Du kan finde bøger, plakater, spil, kaffekrus, kuglepenne og meget andet.

Det er superlet at handle – du betaler med faktura (eller over dit EAN-nummer, hvis I har sådan et) og du har varerne om højest 5 arbejdsdage.

Besøg Arbejdsglædeshoppen og se om der er noget du kan bruge, til at skabe mere arbejdsglæde.