The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Category: Happy At Work

How to be happy at work

  • Say something nice to a co-worker

    I got this email out of the blue from a lady called Valerie:

    I recently started reading Happy Hour is from 9 to 5. I decided to make it a goal this week to write a personal note of sincere appreciation to each of my co-workers (and my boss). This was particularly easy for the most part as I have great co-workers … except for one that is challenging.

    Nonetheless, I did this and it’s nice to see everybody, even “crabby pants” with a smile on their face. In fact, my boss told me today that he took his note home and put it up on his refrigerator.

    I asked Valerie what the reactions were, and she followed up yesterday with this:

    Two co-workers sent emails to me, telling how much they enjoyed their notes, proceeding into things they like about me. I replied to both persons that I was not fishing for compliments, but thanked them for their kind responses. One of the emails came from “crabby pants.”

    As I presented each person with their note, I said, “I made myself a promise this week to give a note to each of my co-workers to express something I appreciate about each of you.” I then just left the note and walked away.

    In the end, I think the person most touched by my note was a 50 something co-worker preparing for her youngest of four boys to leave the nest. It became evident to me several months ago that she had the onset of empty nest syndrome. She seems to be inadvertently hovering over everybody, spoon feeding information like we can’t possibly do our jobs on our own. My note to her was a simple expression of how I appreciate her calm demeanor and how much her presence is the glue that holds our group together when things are getting a little insane.

    The greatest reward in giving the notes wasn’t receiving compliments in return. It was the noticeable difference of facial expressions as I passed by those same people later.

    I am making Happy Hour is 9 to 5 required reading for my husband and plan to anonymously get a copy of it put on our COOs desk.

    Thanks Valerie – you rock for doing this. I love this kind of thing and it just goes to show that small gestures can really make a difference. Could you try this in your workplace? Have you already done something similar? Write a comment – I’d love to know what you think.

  • Top 5 tips to beat the post-vacation blues at work

    Aaaahhh… Summer vacation. Depending on your fancy it’s time to lie on the beach with a good book, wear out your shoe soles exploring a strange city or scream your head off skydiving or in some other adrenaline-driven pursuit.

    But invariably the vacation ends and you go back to work, and that transition can be a little rough.

    Do you know that feeling? You come back to work happy and full of energy – but by the end of the first work day, you’re already feeling tired an unhappy. It’s almost like you didn’t have a vacation at all.

    So here are a five tips to help you stay happy when you get back to work.

    1: While you’re away, get away

    Don’t take the company mobile and laptop on vacation. Don’t check your voice mail and email.

    The point of a vacation is to get away and go to a different mental space, and if you’re preoccupied with work, chances are you’ll both enjoy your vacation less and get less relaxation out of it.

    2: Let yourself get behind

    When you get back from your vacation, you will invariably have fallen behind and have a lot of work to catch up on. There will be a ton of voice mails, emails and tasks that need your attention. THAT’S FINE!!! It’s unavoidable and it’s not your fault.

    Look at it this way: If you can leave the company for two weeks and there’s no work waiting for you, you’re not really needed there.

    So don’t expect to have a clear desk on your first day back – allow yourself to be behind and to catch up steadily.

    3: Start with some easy tasks

    When you get back to work, don’t immediately throw yourself at the toughest, hairiest most complicated tasks you have. Ease into work by doing something easy and simple – something you know you can do. Once you’re back in full swing you can go at the tough tasks.

    4: Don’t overwork to catch up

    It can be really tempting to work long hours to catch up after your vacation. DON’T!!! Work regular hours and stick to point 2 above.

    5: Ask for help if you need it

    If you find it difficult to catch up, don’t be afraid to ask your co-workers or manager for help. It’s important for you to be aware of any outstanding tasks that may have become critically late in your absence, and if you could use some help – it’s your responsibility to ask for it! It also greatly increases the chance that you will actually get help.

    If you use these tips, you may find that your vacations feel more like vacations and that you can be even happier at work.

    But on a fundamental level, there is something wrong with the idea that work drains you of energy and weekends and vacations recharge you. I know that this is how most people feel – but that’s not how it should be.

    If work typically drains you of energy – if every week ends up draining you of life so you barely make it to Friday afternoon where you can finally relax – then something’s wrong. Don’t accept that state of affairs just because everyone else does.

    When you’re happy at work, work can actually be a regenerative activity that leaves you with more energy so you leave the workplace with a spring in your step most days!

    And THAT is the ultimate way to beat the post-vacation blues: Have a job you actually like!

    Your take

    Do you ever get the post-vacation blues? What do you do to beat’em? Have you also noticed that vacations these days seem to be more tiring than work (as this article says)?

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  • Out of office

    For the next week I will be out of office – far out. In fact, I’ll be hiking in Croatia.

    But while I’m gone, here’s a challenge for you: What’s the best “Out of office” reply you’ve ever seen? One that goes beyond just “I’m not available and will be back on xx/xx”. One that’s fun, creative and different.

    Post it in a comment here. Best contribution before August 15 wins a copy of my book Happy Hour is 9 to 5.

    And while you’re at it, maybe you can think about a more fun and creative “Out of office” mail for when you go on vacation.

  • The 2 things you need to be happy at work

    What does it take to be happy at work? Is it about salary, bonuses, perks and promotions?

    No. All of those are nice, but they can never make you happy at work. Happiness at work comes from two other simple factors. Watch this 4-minute video to learn more.

    This is the second video in a series of five that we did for Danish enzyme producer Novozymes. They are already a great workplace, and as part of a campaign called “It’s Great to be a Zymer” wanted a simple, fun way to communicate the basic concepts of happiness at work to their employees in Denmark, China, USA and Brazil. So they hired us to do these videos, which their employees can access on the intranet. They have very kindly allowed us to share the videos with a wider audience.

  • See us speak in San Francisco on August 4

    Update: 106 sign-ups already – that’s fantastic. The venue holds 130 people, so if you want to be there, make your move :o)

    Do you ever feel like work has stopped being fun and become just a chore? When you wake up on a Monday morning, do you feel energized and excited about the work week ahead of you – or do you feel tired and dispirited?

    What would it mean to you if you LOVED your job? What would it do for your business success, for your work days and for your spouse, partner, friends, family or children?

    Come hear some of the world’s leading experts on happiness at work when Danish company Woohoo Inc. comes to San Francisco.

    We’ll be talking about these topics and more:

    • Why you should be happy at work and the cost of hating you job.
    • The business value of happiness.
    • What makes us happy or unhappy at work.
    • What you can do right now, to start enjoying work more.
    • What some of the world’s happiest workplaces do.

    The presentation is aimed both at people who would like to become happier at work themselves and at HR people and managers who want to make their employees happy.

    You will get:

    • A deeper knowledge about happiness at work
    • Specific tools that you can apply on the job right away
    • A boost of energy to get you started on improving your work life

    Here are the details:
    Time: Thursday August 4 7PM-9PM
    Place: The Hub, 925 Mission St, San Francisco
    Price: $0 – yep, it’s free!

    Sign up here to attend.

    Please help us out by spreading the word about this event any way you can (twitter, facebook, Google+, etc…)

  • Don’t buy the happiness hype

    Happy at work

    I got this comment last week on my post on how to find a job you’ll love:

    My advice, find a job that pays well, stay there and make your life outside work worth it. Don’t believe the hype about getting your degree and living a great life with a job you love. I tried it and now I’m going to lose my house, my car and probably my family cause I can’t find work.

    There’s something to this. Making happiness one of the primary goals of your career and work life carries a cost. It may make finding a new job harder, because you can’t just take any job out there. It means taking action and working to improve you job if you’re not happy. It may even mean having to leave a workplace because you realize that you will never be happy there no matter how hard you try. This is why I never tell people to put happiness first. I ask them to consider making that choice – and making it with open eyes.

    However, the simple counter-argument to the comment above is this: People who hate their jobs get fired all the time too.

  • Another seeeeeeriously cool workplace


    The Toolbox office space in Torino, Italy.
     

    I got an email a while back about Toolbox, a professional incubator in Torino, Italy.

    From the material describing the space:

    The project is believed to meet the needs of a city in a phase of substantial transformation.

    At a time when, with a laptop and a Wi-Fi connection, it is possible to work from anywhere, the question emerging is what professional space is needed for. How is it possible to design a space combining users’ plurality with the coherence of the whole design? How is it possible to mediate between a need for socialisation and privacy, between relaxation and concentration?

    From the functional point of view, the project consists in the creation of an open space with 44 individual workstations combined with other services and activities. The goal has been to keep the modular concrete structure unaltered.

    The main span of the building has been divided lengthwise by a series of ‘filter volumes’ used as technical spaces for storing lockers and equipment. On one side, there is the co-working space, on the other side, the corridors and the functional ‘box’ containing shared facilities such as meeting rooms, print rooms, informal meeting spaces, mailboxes, a patio and a kitchen.

    Sounds good, but what really knocked my socks off was these pictures:

    That is just stunning!

    What I like about this space is not just that it’s colourful and inspiring – that’s nice but it’s only a start. What I especially appreciate is that it caters to to many different working styles and personalities. Some people thrive in a large open space others hate it like the plague. For some tasks you may prefer one area – for other tasks

    The true crime of many office buildings these days is both that they’re drab, uniform and boring but also that they assume that everybody is the same and only offer one type of working environment.

    Your take

    How about your workspace? Does it inspire you at all? Does it work for you and your wo-workers and does it allow for different working styles for different tasks?

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  • Friday Spoing

    If your job is wrapping the customers’ purchases (in this case silk saris) in a shop in India, you face a choice. You can either think “MAN, what a boring job” and try to get it over with as quickly as possible.

    Or you can do what this guy does:

    That’s happiness at work in 15 seconds :o)

  • Highlights from our conference

    On May 26 we had our annual conference on happiness at work here in Copenhagen and it was our best event yet.

    Here’s a 3-minute video with some highlights from the day:

    Part of the video is in Danish, part of it in English.

    You can also find materials, slides and photos from the conference here.

    The day was absolutely fantastic and participant feedback has been phenomenal. The average rating for the day is 4,8 out of 5 – that is almost unheard of :o)

  • Fun and games in meetings

    Meetings

    Check out this comment from Cindy:

    I made up a game for my weekly department meetings to refresh and train the staff in a fun and competitive way.(I was managing a despatch department in a manufacturing company)

    The Game
    I made a list of questions relating to the department, it’s procedures and the stock etc.
    I purchased a bag of lollies and treats (a couple of dollars taken from petty cash)
    I gave each person at the meeting a bell and the first one to ring the bell and get the question right got a lollie or treat.
    The overall winner was the person who scored the most lollies/treats.

    This game created excitement because the staff had to beat each other to the buzzer and that got them thinking at the same time. It made them all feel like a winner in the end because everyone ended up with some prizes.

    However the best benefit from this game was that if they did not know the answer or couldn’t remember the answer (sometimes a person may have their facts wrong and you have been trying to enforce the correct answer – usually someone who has been there a while and think they no longer need training) that person walked away from the meeting having learnt something they will probably remember because it was taught in a fun environment.A fun way of refreshing and training.
    The staff grew to love the weekly quizzes and became quite competitive about it.

    Try it at your next meeting
    Cheers

    What do you think – could this work in your workplace? What’s the weirdest thing you’ve done in a meeting?

    Original post: Five weeeeeeeeird tips for great meetings.