{"id":280,"date":"2017-07-18T17:39:08","date_gmt":"2017-07-18T15:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hpbbnieuws.nl\/?p=280"},"modified":"2017-07-18T17:39:08","modified_gmt":"2017-07-18T15:39:08","slug":"10-simple-things-the-ceo-can-do-to-create-a-happy-workplace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hpbbnieuws.nl\/?p=280","title":{"rendered":"10 simple things the CEO can do to create a happy workplace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blog van Alexander Kjerulf, april 2015. Kjerulf is founder van Woohoo inc en een van werelds vooraanstaande thought leaders over happiness at work. Kjerulf schreef de internationale bestseller \u201cHappy hour is 9 tot 5\u2032.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"happy-org-chart\"10 SIMPLE THINGS THE CEO CAN DO TO CREATE A HAPPY WORKPLACE<\/h2>\n

Happiness at work starts from\u00a0the top.\u00a0This is one of the fundamental truths of happy workplaces.<\/p>\n

In any\u00a0organization where people consistently love\u00a0to work, you will find a CEO and executive leadership team that places\u00a0employee happiness among their top strategic priorities and act accordingly.<\/p>\n

One of our favorite examples of a\u00a0CEO who truly gets this is Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines (since retired), who\u00a0put it like this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

When I started out, business school professors liked to pose a conundrum: Which do you put first, your employees, your customers, or your shareholders? As if that were an unanswerable question.<\/p>\n

My answer was very easy: You put your employees first. If you truly treat your employees that way, they will treat your customers well, your customers will come back, and that\u2019s what makes your shareholders happy.<\/p>\n

So there is no constituency at war with any other constituency. Ultimately, it\u2019s shareholder value that you\u2019re producing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If, on the other hand, you have top brass\u00a0who don\u2019t give a damn about anything but the bottom line and their own bonuses and stock options, I can flat-out guarantee that you will create\u00a0an organization with very little happiness but with a lot of fear, stress and frustration. And, ironically, with poor\u00a0bottom line\u00a0results.<\/p>\n

So top executives MUST make employee happiness one of their most important goal. Both\u00a0because it\u2019s the right thing to do for the sake of their people, but also because it will actually make the company more successful. Studies consistently show that happy workplaces make more money.<\/p>\n

But how does a CEO or top executive practice this on a daily basis? What can they do to make their organization happier?<\/p>\n

Here are 10 great real-life examples\u00a0that we\u2019ve seen work really well in workplaces around the world.<\/p>\n

10: Regular lunches with employees<\/h3>\n

During a speech in Istanbul, I met an\u00a0executive of a huge Turkish organization who has had a monthly lunch with 10 randomly picked employees for years now.\u00a0Every month 10 employees get a chance to have a nice lunch and over the course of a couple of hours get to ask any question they want and air any concerns or complaints.<\/p>\n

They also get a chance to meet him in an informal setting and get a sense of who he is as a person.<\/p>\n

9: Random acts of workplace kindness<\/h3>\n

Some CEOs enjoy doing little random things to surprise and delight their staff. Here\u2019s an example from Medis, one of our clients in Iceland, where the CEO decided to\u00a0make fresh pancakes and waffles for\u00a0anyone passing by.<\/p>\n

He even had a great time himself:<\/p>\n

I thoroughly enjoyed it\u00a0\u2013 the biggest joy I actually got out of observing the reaction of the colleagues !<\/p>\n

FYI we did not announce anything but simply showed up in the corridor without notice and took people pleasantly by surprise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

8: Celebrate\u00a0accomplishments<\/h3>\n

The Danish Competition and Consumer\u00a0Authority is a government agency whose 200 employees work to enforce consumer\u00a0regulations and keep markets competitive.<\/p>\n

Every month they have a breakfast meeting where important information is shared with\u00a0all employees. At this meeting, the director Agnete always shares 2-3 successes that the organization has had since the last meeting. She\u2019ll highlight\u00a0how\u00a0they\u2019ve completed a big project or won a court case\u00a0and make sure that the people who worked on that are recognized and celebrated.<\/p>\n

7:\u00a0Encourage bad news<\/h3>\n

One CEO we know\u00a0had a strong desire to receive all bad news as soon as possible. He knew bad things happened (they do in all workplaces) but he also knew that some employees were to afraid of reprisals to come out and directly say that\u00a0they might miss a deadline or have to disappoint a client.<\/p>\n

So he has trained himself and his managers to always receive bad news with a smile and a phrase like \u201cThank you for telling me that.\u201d This took some practice.<\/p>\n

That way bad news come out early and can be dealt with before it turns into a disaster.<\/p>\n

6: Meet with new employees<\/h3>\n

One fast-growing company of ours has a tradition where the CEO hosts a monthly afternoon tea at his home for all new hires that month.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a completely informal gathering that serves two functions: He gets to meet all the new people and get a sense of who they are and he takes some time to talk about the company\u2019s history and vision\u00a0which is a powerful way to show\u00a0the new hires the values and purpose of the organization.<\/p>\n

5: Solve problems<\/h3>\n

South African social media agency Quirk has a process in place that encourages employees to bring\u00a0about any problems they see\u00a0to the attention of the executive team. The process gives all employees a voice and guarantees action from the executives in two weeks at the most.<\/p>\n

You can read about\u00a0their process here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

4: Encourage critical questions<\/h3>\n

The former CEO of a big global logistics company had annual road shows where he\u00a0went around the world to present their annual\u00a0strategy to the company\u2019s locations.<\/p>\n

He wanted to show the attendees that they could ask him anything, so he introduced an award for \u201cmost critical question.\u201d The award was a little cow statue to show that the company had no \u201choly cows\u201d \u2013 any question was fair, no matter how critical.<\/p>\n

3: Say good morning<\/h3>\n

Carsten and Karsten, two sales managers at Danish company Solar, wanted to do something nice for their employees.<\/p>\n

Early one Monday morning, they stood at the entrance and greeted every employee with a cheerful \u201cgood morning\u201d and a breakfast they could take to their desks.<\/p>\n

2: Celebrate mistakes<\/h3>\n

In one company, the CEO was told by a trembling employee, that the company website was down. This was a big deal \u2013 this company made most of its sales online, and downtime cost them thousands of dollars an hour.<\/p>\n

The CEO asked what had happened, and was told that John in IT had bungled a system backup, and caused the problem. \u201cWell, then,\u201d says the CEO \u201cLet\u2019s go see John!\u201d<\/p>\n

When the CEO walked into the IT department everyone went quiet. They had a pretty good idea what wass coming, and were sure it wouldn\u2019t be pretty.<\/p>\n

The CEO walks up to John\u2019s desk and asks \u201cYou John?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes\u201d he says meekly.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn, \u201d says the CEO, \u201cI want to thank you for finding this weakness in our system. Thanks to your actions, we can now learn from this, and fix the system, so something like this can\u2019t happen in the future. Good work!\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he left a visibly baffled John and an astounded IT department. That particular mistake never happened again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In\u00a0many workplaces, \u00a0employees who do good work are rarely recognized but anyone who makes a mistake is immediately and harshly punished. This is dumb.<\/p>\n

When we can openly admit to screwing up without fear of reprisals, we\u2019re more likely to fess up and learn from our mistakes. And that\u2019s why top executives should\u00a0help employees celebrate mistakes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As an example, IT company Menlo Innovations in Michigan has this banner hanging in their office:<\/p>\n

\"Make<\/p>\n

1: Walk the halls and meet people<\/h3>\n

One\u00a0day, the IKEA store in Gentofte, Denmark was a hive of activity. Not only was there a European executive meeting taking place, but the company founder, Ingvar Kamprad himself, was in the house. That\u2019ll make most employees straighten up and put in a little extra effort.<\/p>\n

The execs wrapped up at 6 in the evening and Ingvar then took\u00a0a stroll through the entire store as if this was the most natural thing in the world, kindly greeting each and every employee. He encountered two female employees talking to each other and approached them with a smile and the words: \u201cAnd what are you two lovely ladies talking about?\u201d \u2013 following up with big\u00a0hugs for both of them.<\/p>\n

I love this because it shows a genuine interest in the employees and because Kamprad is clearly happy himself and not afraid to show it.<\/p>\n

We know from\u00a0psychological studies that emotions are contagious and top leaders can spread a lot of happiness simply by being happy themselves.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0point<\/h3>\n

This list is by no means exhaustive and\u00a0it\u2019s definitely not meant to be prescriptive. We\u2019re not saying\u00a0all executives should do these things.<\/p>\n

What we are saying is that top executives play a huge role in creating happy workplaces. They do this in\u00a0the big stuff \u2013 by making sure that the strategies, plans, goals and values they set for the organization are defined with the employees\u2019 well-being in mind.<\/p>\n

But they also do it in small, daily, interpersonal ways where they can show that they genuinely care about their people, can build relationships with employees and can let\u00a0employees see them as real human beings.<\/p>\n

However, this can only work under a few conditions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It must flow from a genuine care\u00a0for the employees. If the CEO doesn\u2019t honestly care about\u00a0her employees, she shouldn\u2019t try to fake it. But I\u2019ve always said that if you don\u2019t care about people, you have no business leading them.<\/li>\n
  2. Executives must WANT to do things to make employees happier.\u00a0It\u2019s OK to go a little outside of your comfort zone but\u00a0if you do things you actively hate, that fact will shine through and it probably won\u2019t work.<\/li>\n
  3. Actions must match words. You can\u2019t on the one hand make pancakes or hug employees and on the other hand introduce large-scale organizational changes with no regard for how employees feel. They will see right through that.<\/li>\n
  4. Consistency over the long term is mandatory. If you do this for a short while\u00a0or only do it some of the time, it will be recognized as fake.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Understanding this and acting on it gives\u00a0the executives in a workplace huge leverage to make their employees feel valued professionally and personally \u2013 thus increasing happiness, engagement and motivation as well as productivity.<\/p>\n

    Not doing this \u2013 and let\u2019s face facts, most executives don\u2019t \u2013 means failing your employees, your customers and your investors.<\/p>\n

    Your take<\/h3>\n

    Do you think executives should care about the happiness of their employees? Do the executives in your workplace honestly care about their people? How do they show it \/ not show it?<\/p>\n

    Bron: klik\u00a0hier<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Blog van Alexander Kjerulf, april 2015. Kjerulf is founder van Woohoo inc en een van werelds vooraanstaande thought leaders over happiness at work. Kjerulf schreef de internationale bestseller \u201cHappy hour is 9 tot 5\u2032. 10 […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":3262,"featured_media":281,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14,15,17,23,35,76,44,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-280","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-happiness-at-work","8":"tag-ceo","9":"tag-communicatie","10":"tag-cultuur","11":"tag-geluk","12":"tag-management","13":"tag-organisatie","14":"tag-plezier","15":"tag-werk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hpbbnieuws.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hpbbnieuws.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hpbbnieuws.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hpbbnieuws.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hpbbnieuws.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hpbbnieuws.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":282,"href":"https:\/\/www.hpbbnieuws.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions\/282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hpbbnieuws.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hpbbnieuws.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hpbbnieuws.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hpbbnieuws.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}