Insight, advice, news and chit chat

A happy workplace equals great results

8 reasons a happy work environment is key to great results

Keeping your team happy is definitely important to getting great results for your business! Aside from feeling good about yourself as a leader, I wanted to reveal the 8 benefits your business will get as the side effects of a happy workplace!
 

Most people who work these days have some sort of stress in their lives, whether it’s the commute in (especially in London!), personal issues or deadlines at work. Here at TLD we work in the vibrant Soho and as lovely as it is, sometimes getting here can be quite stressful! For me I only work part time as I have a young daughter at school, and with getting her ready for school and me for work, aiming to catch my train on time (if there isn’t a leaf on the track that day), is challenging enough.
I enjoy working as it is actually the least busy part of my day. Once I am here I can relax, make a tea and do my work in my time. Then before I know it I am running out the door for that train to collect her from school, and the craziness starts again! I relish the fact that our office environment is a happy and relaxed one as I don’t think I could cope with all factors of my life being hectic!

Productivity

Your team being productive is an important factor in helping your business grow. They will be less preoccupied, more focused on work and more willing to take on new challenges. If the office environment is a happy one they are less likely to take a day off with a little sniffle and want to want to come to work. Happy team members are going to have better concentration levels and be more accurate in their work. If they are unhappy, they won’t want to be at work, their mind will be elsewhere they are more likely to make mistakes and not really care either.

Team players

Happy and confident people are more likely to be willing to work as part of a team. If they are preoccupied and have stresses, then they may not be in the right frame of mind to work with others. They are more likely to help each other out and if another team member has an issue they will help them tackle it! We at TLD are always offering to help out each other here, and even though I am not a designer and can’t actually help with the design and coding work, I am always on hand to make a tea and give out free hugs!
Creativity
Happiness definitely helps creativity, simply because if you are happy and worry free then it frees up space in your brain and makes room for you to be a creative bean! Your team are more likely to come up with good ideas when they are in the “zone” and less worried about the day to day tasks. If they have lost their mojo then they are less likely to and you need to help them to get it back! This is definitely a must for our designers so keeping them happy is very important so they can dream up new possibilities!

Loyalty

This maybe be self-explanatory but if you keep your team happy then they are more than likely to stay and be loyal. Think of a cat, they are very fickle and would go anywhere that has food. If you keep their home warm and their bellies full then they aren’t going to go anywhere. It’s the same with your team (well sort of?!)! Keep them happy, the environment they work in happy and you are going to retain them. You need to keep hold of happy and hardworking staff even if you are part of the reason! I love the fact that here at TLD we are treated to nights out and weekends away, this makes us all very happy and bonding with the team has turned work relationships into long-term friendships.

Customer service

Happy people are going to be friendlier, whether in email or face to face. If your team are not happy and aren’t enjoying their job, then they are less likely to be as polite to customers. Customers are key to your company and if you had no customers you wouldn’t have a business or staff. So keeping your team happy will in turn keep your customers happy as their happiness will rub off and they will more likely to be happy and bend over backwards for customers. We are lucky here as we all get on so well and the office has a relaxed and positive vibe and this comes across when we are engaging with our clients.

Lower costs

Your team are less likely to take days off and stress is a huge factor in people’s health. If the office is stress free and happy then they are less likely to get sick or take off sick days just because they don’t want to come into work! Unless you are keeping your team happy with boozy lunches and nights out then they may be too hungover to come in! I much prefer coming into the office than staying at home, I actually get to speak to adults and even if I’m sick I still have mum duties to do and I can escape these for a small period of time whilst at work.

Better under stress

You are more likely able to deal with stress if you are happy and your environment is happy. Also, if you are not feeling stressed you are more likely to come up with a solution than if you are stressed, nervous and your heart is racing. At TLD we currently don’t have any difficult clients, but there are sometimes deadlines that need to be met and it can be quite stressful but we always seem to manage well as we are a happy and healthy team! We use “bubbles” here, this is when we are under pressure or have a deadline we tell the rest of the team we can’t have any interruptions. They work really well and give our designers the time to ‘design’!

Leadership

Happy team members are better leaders, they become more resilient and can bounce back from failures better. If they are happy then they are more likely to use their initiative and make decisions on their own. If you give your team more responsibility, then this would make them happy and then you can just keep on giving! I love getting more responsibilities and being left to do my work as at home I can’t even make a cup of tea without being interrupted.
If you can make the environment at work happy then your team are more than likely to be happier. Keeping your team happy isn’t always easy as that comes from within the person, but if you can help with getting them there then it will definitely show great results for your business.

Leave a comment

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>