10 days ago I posted this picture of a memo from Joe Biden to his staff, saying that he never wants them “to miss or sacrifice important family obligations for work.” The image has since gone viral. It was retweeted by tons of people (including the amazing Sarah Silverman) and it has gained a lot of attention on … Continue reading The 3 most common objections to Biden’s awesome letter – and my rebuttals
Happiness at work starts from the top. This is one of the fundamental truths of happy workplaces. In any organization where people consistently love to work, you will find a CEO and executive leadership team that places employee happiness among their top strategic priorities and act accordingly. One of our favorite examples of a CEO who truly gets this is Herb … Continue reading 10 simple things the CEO can do to create a happy workplace
This is so far just a small study of employees at one company, but the results are interesting. Researchers Ravi S. Gajendran and Deepak Somaya summarize their study as follows in HBR: We began our study by surveying over 700 employees at a large multinational IT firm. We asked them to assess their manager’s leadership quality… Eighteen months … Continue reading New study: We know employees leave bad bosses – but maybe they also leave good ones
Happy workplaces are more profitable and innovative, attract the best employees and have lower absenteeism and employee turnover rates. Simply put, happy companies make more money. But how do you create a happy workplace? We believe some of the answers are found in positive psychology - a fascinating field and one of the main inspirations for the work … Continue reading The 5 most important findings from the science of happiness that apply at work
The video has English subtitles. If you don’t see them, press the button in the video. Could a 30-hour workweek work? It not only could, for the mechanics at Toyota Center in Gothenburg Sweden it has worked incredibly well for over 10 years, leading to happier employees, happier customers and higher growth and profits. In this … Continue reading How Toyota Gothenburg moved to a 30-hour workweek and boosted profits and customer satisfaction
Positive feedback not only feels great – it also makes us more effective. Yet another study (this one from Harvard Business School) confirms what we all know: Receiving positive feedback makes us happier at work, less stressed and more productive. From the study: In the study, participants… were asked to solve problems. Just before that, approximately half of the … Continue reading Why EVERY workplace needs a culture of positive feedback – and 5 great ways to do it
Yet another study confirms what we all know: Giving employees positive feedback leads to more happiness at work, less stress and better performance: In the study, participants… were asked to solve problems. Approximately half of the participants were told to ask friends and family members to send them an email just prior to their participation that described … Continue reading New study confirms that positive feedback increases performance
Should a manager focus primarily on results or people? Should the manager be the one who sets KPIs and drives employees towards their goals, or should the manager rather be the one who understands and likes employees and is able to build good relationships with them? In 2009 James Zenger published a study that examined exactly that … Continue reading To create results, leaders must put relationships first
My first “real” job was for a large and very famous Danish company who’d hired me fresh out of university to work on one of their big new products. One day, about a month into my employment there, I was sitting at my desk thinking big thoughts. To other people it might have looked like I … Continue reading Why every company needs to give employees Free Time on the job
Last year I did a workshop for a client in Copenhagen whose main problem was that they were just way too busy. They’re a trade union and new legislation meant that they got an influx of new government-mandated tasks but budget constraints meant they couldn’t hire more people. Consequently they were increasingly falling behind on their work, through … Continue reading What do you do when there’s just too much work?
