Now that you know how to make other people happy you can bring this to the attention of your business or company. Positive work environments are essential, but I worry companies have forgotten how to make employees happy.
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It used to be companies went out of their way for their employees. In fact, there were times in history when people would find a job and work until they retired. Not so much anymore. The company gave them great benefits and many treated those employees well. The companies gave employees a sense there would be a job for life and, in those days, employees wouldn’t dream of jumping ship. Unless some unforeseen circumstance required them to leave, employees were there to stay.
It is hard to imagine ever going back to the days of lifetime employment. There are simply too many variables to make it highly unlikely. Companies think nothing of laying off employees. Employees have gotten so used to job jumping which often leads to bumps up in pay.
The internet needs to be taken into consideration too. It’s much easier to find work online or to create online income producing businesses. While doing this takes some training and persistence, people are constantly finding new ways to make a buck or two online. Several are even replacing the incomes from their jobs and then some.
Have Companies Forgotten How to Make Employees Happy?
Have these conditions made it so companies no longer care about making employees happy? While they still offer benefits and have the occasional office event, many companies feel that there is much less concentration in maintaining happy employees. Of course, there will be some companies that try to do as much as they can to retain employees and keep them happy. But overall, it seems the trend to treat employees as just another head count will continue into the future.
There can be situations where a company, on the whole, is good to employees but some employees get mistreated by bad managers. There can also be situations where great managers work in companies that don’t care as much about their employees. Overall, the transient nature of today’s workforce makes these types of situations not likely to last. Employees will continue to seek better conditions and companies will continue to dispense with employees as they see fit.
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One thing is true. This all makes for a very interesting workplace environment overall. The dynamics will continue to shift as more people discover they have opportunities on the internet. And these shifts will occur all over the world as more people get access to the internet and learn about those possibilities. The internet is one aspect of the workplace that has never existed in previous times.
How does this relate to your happiness? Knowing that large companies may place less of an emphasis on employee happiness allows you to foresee events in the workplace. You can also create a plan for layoff if your company is prone to releasing people from work. Remember to take care of yourself and do what you can to make other people happy in a gloomy situation.
31 Days to Your Happiness Challenge
Each day in the month of October I’ll have a new post in our 31 Days to Your Happiness challenge. You can read all the past posts here.
When I was an HR Coordinator, I received a monthly stipend for employee appreciation and retention, and as long as I could document how I used it to make employees happy, I could do whatever I fancied. I have fond memories of hot cocoa and coloring breaks, chilli cook-offs, gourmet coffee and hot chocolate bar, costume contests, and just randomly walking through the work centers and giving out candy. So fun! I don’t get to do that anymore, but I’ve carried that mindset over to my blog, trying to leave a virtual trail of goodness with every post. 🙂
That’s fantastic Asheritah!
The companies I used to work for certainly did lose track of how to make their employees happy. Like most big name companies, their focus is 99.99% of profits. That’s why I had to ditch the high-profile demanding stressful 9-5 routine, for a slower, much happier, much more full-filling alternative. And I am not alone. Many women are looking for ways to scale back and find true happiness at work and at home. It’s doable!
I completely agree Darlene!