Are you the business owner responsible for making your employees happy at work? Many employees would tell you yes, just ask them. Business owners are responsible for several things when it comes to their employees. First and foremost you are responsible for providing a healthy work environment for them. That sounds good and I am sure you want to provide this, but what exactly does that entail? Let’s take a look at three key ingredients that are needed in making a healthy workplace.
Safe environment: Providing an environment that is clean, safe from hazards, one with proper working equipment for employees to do their jobs without causing injury to themselves, (remember OSHA). It also means a work environment that is run without causing fear to the employees, where employees are not abused verbally, emotionally or physically. A workplace where employees feel it is safe for them in all aspects.
Ethical Management: Having management that understands and exhibits good leadership standards with ethics and integrity. Management personal must be trained to deal with personality issues, generational differences and have good communication skills. Business owners and their management staff need to have the knowledge of state laws and regulations in order to deal with personnel issues correctly as they arise, to protect their business from legal issues. One very important key ingredient for management is they really need enjoy what they are doing and have a genuine interest in creating a pleasant environment for everyone to work in.
Training: Not only does the management staff need to have proper training, but so do all staff members in order for them to perform their job duties to the satisfaction of the supervisor and business owner. They also must have the training to understand what their legal boundaries are so they do not cause legal issues for the business. By providing initial training and then continuing education to your staff members you are investing in their growth in the knowledge of what your business is about. Encourage them to pursue further education and provide opportunities for them to do so. People feel valued when their employer takes an interest in them and feel that they are worth investing in. The payoff for your business will far outweigh any monetary investment you will make.
Now that we know what it takes to provide a healthy work environment, what about the question of making the employees happy? Is it the business owners responsibility? You and your management staff set the overall tone of your work environment. Like that old saying “If mama ain’t happy, no one is happy”, the same goes with the office. If you and your management staff are not happy, pleasant, courteous, kind and caring, your staff will not be either. Even when you are happy and your staff is not, it is your responsibility to find out why and see if it is something that pertains to the business that you can fix.
But do you have to make them happy? The answer is No. Happiness is a personal choice and each person makes the choice to be happy or not each hour and minute of each day.
Although it is easier to be happy at work when the workday is going great and everyone seems to be getting along and having a good time, but that is not going to happen every day. So when it is not what then? I found it best said in the book “FISH” (by Stephen Lundin, Ph.D., Harry Paul and John Christensen) “we each have to accept that we choose the attitude we bring to work with us each day. We can choose to bring our best self to work and to love the work we do. We may not be able to do exactly what we love at the present time, but we can bring our best qualities to our work each day- it is our choice”.
We may not always be doing tasks that we love every moment of each day, but we can have happy thoughts that will get us through. Try to look for the positive in situations and what we can learn from them and not dwell on the negative. Even when things are not going well in our personal lives we can try to find something we can be thankful for that will make us feel better if we will just take a moment really think about it.
As a business owner you are responsible for providing a great place for your employees to work in, but making them happy is their responsibility.
Original Author : Tina_Del_Buono
Courtesy : Source : http://ezinearticles.com
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I personally feel that Boss can make an employee satisfy but Employee happiness is mainly depend with him and his colleagues
First, let me say that, maybe, ‘responsible’ is a word a little too hard here. Making someone responsible of something implies that they have a way to measure the end result – looks a bit hard to actually measure happiness, don’t you think?
On the other hand, in every organization there is at least one party interested in having the employees happy because of the good results this may yield. Now, who is this – this depends on the organization: can be the business owner if the business is small, can be the direct manager if the organization is project oriented and he/she is involved in the team’s work or it can be your friendly PM or team coordinator in case you are in a matrix organization where people’s daily work relate more to teh project team than to their direct/legal manager.
So, in my opinion, the one who needs to care about team happiness is the one who wants to get the job/task/project done.
I will make the story more complicated – from the PM perspective working in matrix organizational structured company. My question is, when you are working on big projects, who is responsible for making employees happy at work – PM or direct manager? The point is that team members have their direct manager, but you as a PM spend much more time with him than his direct manager. So, at first, you would say – their direct managers should take care of their happiness, but for me as a PM it is very important that team members are motivated – what is very closely related to the fact if they are happy or not. So, think of the situation when you have an 18 month long project and the team member is dedicated to that project for all 18 months, and spends each day 8 hours on your project. There is much more interaction with the PM of the project he is working for, than direct manager.
I would say that both should take care of him. His direct manager should take care of his education, growth in long-term. While, PM should be capable to motivate the team member – I am just not aware of all the possible activities you could use to achieve it!
I think there is one crucial aspect of the environment that needs to be included here: a trusted relationship between manager and his/her directs, be it middle management with the first line of workers, or at top management level.
Trust (in this context, for me) means the ability to speak open and respectful when one feels that something is going in the wrong direction, when one would like to understand, and can ask the question without being told “it’s none of your business”, and when the answers provided are honest.
You might not always be able to make the employee happy with the responses, but at least the employee feels that they are not mere workers, but your partner in bringing good results to the company.
This is one way to make the employees feel happy: they are needed for the company results, they are respected and trusted.
Both – I agree with the author of the article – partly. The manager needs to provide an open, nuturing environment and employees also need to take their share of responsibility for their own happiness. Naveed is right when he says that it cannot all fall on the managers. They are only people after all, and very busy people at that. The only thing that I don’t agree with in the article is that people can only choose their positive or negative attitude to a point. If something is totally out of whack for me at work, no matter how hard I try, I cannot make myself be upbeat and positive, especially if the situation continues for a long time. So, while both are responsible, there is a piece missing in the equation – that is the development of the employees’ ability to say exactly what is causing them to be unhappy. There is an assumption that their ability to do this is a given, when, in fact, we find in our work that people are seldom able to state clearly where their disconnect is.
Ditto Irina. The direct managers are responsible for an employee’ happiness.
I partly agree with Irina on this one. An employee is equally responsible for his ‘happiness’ at a workplace no matter how good his/her manager is. Your manager certainly has no powers to read your mind. Whenever your have an issue, please talk to your manager before you take that to your head and start hating your work. No matter how good a manager is, as long as the manager does not know what is going on with his/her subordinates, there is nothing he/she can do to help.
My advice: Whenever you have any work related concern, first person you should talk to is your manager (as long as you are not complaining).
Yes – agree with Irina and Sergio.. It’s the responsibility of direct managers / immediate supervisors – to make their employees time – support, motivation, providing free space for new ideas, empowerment, allowing the employees to take up the risks – all these things can only be done by the direct managers – that makes employee motivated and to get the things done.. even in the difficult times/ challenging time – employees would feel comfortable to work.
That’s why – employees will leave becasue of the managers – two reasons
If the manager is good- the team would leave once the manager is no longer in the company.
If the manger is not good – the team cannot work together and tend to leave ..
Direct Managers!!! I Agree with Irina.
Congratulations on the response.
Their direct managers… I strongly believe that a good manager can make an employee happy even during challenging times…