#CareerCounsel: Creating workplace happiness

What makes a happy team in a workplace? Every individual will approach workplace happiness differently, so finding a balance that pleases everyone is tricky for managers.

#CareerCounsel reopens its doors, starting with some great ways to ensure you and your team have a great year and beyond.

Understanding the individual team members

To understand the team, you need to understand the individual team members. While team brainstorms are a great way for everyone to discuss driving the team forward, you will want to ensure each member of the team feels their own personal goals are being met.

It’s simple; ask them what their professional goal for the near future is, their personal goal for the year and how you can help them with this. You might not be able to directly help with their personal goal, but you can do your upmost to use it as a motivational tool for their daily work tasks. Reminding them that you know what they are striving for, and that you are behind them 100% will work wonders.

The work environment

Just how much do people invest in their workplace surroundings? Employees spend a huge amount of time in their workplace so why would you want their environment to suck the life out of their daily routine?

From desk placement to office plants, small things really make the difference. Once again, getting the team together to brainstorm on this matter is a great place to start. What will make the office an interactive and colourful place to work? The most important factor in the office environment is that everyone is comfortable and has everything they need for a productive working day.

Team activities

When it comes to team building activities, you will find plenty of advice about different things you can do to reward the team and build relationships. By all means, follow this advice as this is a great way for colleagues to interact outside the working environment.

However, it is also important to celebrate successes by having the team acknowledge who is doing great things. Let individuals choose who they think performed superbly in the week or month gone by, and the person with the most ‘love’ can be rewarded in some way. It’s important for managers to compliment great things but encouraging the team to do the same is so central to a happy team.

Hiring new team members

When bringing new people into a team, conveying the company culture will ensure you know they will be happy joining the team. Let them know exactly how the team operates, how you celebrate successes and understand the potential employees’ expectations.

While it’s imperative you do not rush your hiring process, you still need to keep the candidate engaged in your company and team. Remember to ask those important questions you have asked your current team too; what is your professional goal and what is your personal goal? Explaining how you, and the team, will support this completely will increase engagement.

Here’s to a happy team…

We hope you can consider the points raised above and how you can work on managing a team who not only love what they do, but love seeing their team grow and succeed! The pandas love nothing more than helping people build the perfect team. Want to find out more about what we do?