Noelle Federico is CEO of Staff Agency and founder of youth literacy nonprofit A Generous Heart and consulting firm Fortunato Partners.
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The start of a new year is the perfect time for businesses to focus on infusing happiness into the workplace. If the employee disengagement trends of the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that company culture matters. Whether they've been struggling with a return to in-office work or grappling with repercussions from the Great Resignation (e.g., quiet quitting/grumpy staying and coffee badging), leaders must cultivate a positive workplace environment to nurture genuine employee engagement.
Inspired by positive psychology, here are three ways to foster a flourishing culture in your company.
1. Promote every employee’s personal growth.
A genuine investment in employees’ development is vital. As a leader, when you encourage team members to develop a growth plan, you're demonstrating your investment in their success as human beings, not just cogs in a wheel. Additionally, if you care about employees' goals and growth, they'll be more motivated to care about the task at hand and, by extension, the team’s collective success.
Getting started on a growth plan doesn’t need to be a gigantic leap. Help employees set attainable goals for a reasonable time span of 30, 60 and 90 days. For example, if improved fitness is the end goal for someone who rarely has time to hit the gym, walking a mile three times a week for a month is more achievable than planning to run five miles every day for a year. Yes, goals should be challenging to motivate and instill a sense of accomplishment, but they shouldn't be so lofty that people get frustrated and quit.
Well-defined goal setting can lead to increased motivation, performance and satisfaction. That personal success and drive for more success can also foster engagement, benefitting both the individual and the entire team.
2. Build and support positive relationships.
Strong interpersonal relationships are paramount when it comes to employee engagement and overall happiness. Relationship building in the workplace requires two key ingredients: an effective, small-team management structure and consistent, approachable feedback mechanisms.
Creating a structure where leaders have teams of 20 or fewer people allows for an improved understanding of each employee’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s virtually impossible for a person managing 100 or more to effectively engage everyone within their ranks. Ditch the top-down management structure of old and create frameworks where real relationships are forged organically.
One key component of the leader-employee relationship is delivering feedback. These conversations shouldn’t be scary for anyone involved. If it’s a well-ingrained part of company culture, everyone will feel comfortable participating because they know that accountability isn’t personal. Whether assessments come in the form of weekly meetings, company-wide town halls, surveys or other methods, the focus of any feedback loop should be the behavior or the communication, not the personalities involved. The goal should be to applaud success as well as remedy failure. So when soliciting and delivering feedback, stick to two questions: What worked? What didn’t work? Then, collaborate on how to improve.
3. Practice and nurture gratitude, kindness and mindfulness.
The old leadership adage "Practice what you preach" goes a long way when it comes to promoting a culture of gratitude, kindness and mindfulness. If C-suite and top-level managers are genuinely kind and appreciative, those qualities are naturally embedded in the company culture.
These practices can also be woven into the company framework. For example, leaders can encourage wellness by offering mindfulness training and destress activities like yoga or meditation. Weekly gratitude check-ins with teams that highlight good happenings on a personal or company-wide level can also help build a sense of well-being and community. However, don’t fake it or force it. Authenticity is important.
The Upshot Of Investing In Culture
Happy employees tend to be productive employees. By investing in individual growth, building great relationships and valuing kindness, gratitude and wellness, leaders can create a workplace where employee engagement flourishes.
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