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.

Improv Everywhere’s latest stunt is right up our alley: They set up a podium and a megaphone on a New York street corner with a plaque that says simply “Say something nice.”

And people do:

Question: How could this be replicated inside a workplace?

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.

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.

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.