Kilometre zero*
Last year, the World Happiness Council was introduced by the United Arab Emirates with a simple objective: discuss practices and ideas to cultivate happiness around the world.
I spent time over the holidays reading more about the Council’s vision and it makes sense – happiness is driven by a mindset and purposeful action we can easily put into place.
Now if you think about it, on average, we’re working approximately 50 hours per week. That’s about 200 hours per month, clocking 1,920 hours this year if my math is right.
Happiness at work is important – happy team members equals greater well-being, greater potential to thrive to push the business forward, while creating lasting differences for customers.
It’s the “how do we make this happen” that keeps me up at night.
Google “happiness at work” and you’ll get dizzy sorting through the searches. How can we turn all that theory, inspirational quotes and advice into incredible workplace experiences? And why should we even care?
Well, we’re all in this together. Regardless of tenure or title, creating inspiring and engaging workplace experiences starts with us.
So for this year, I’m committing myself to explore practical yet impactful ways we can cultivate hope, optimism, positivity and engagement within our workplaces.
The stuff that leads to a happy experience.
From my observations and humble experiences, drivers include:
- Purposeful communications
- Everyday appreciation and gratitude
- A check on attitudes
- Setting a clear vision
- Reporting back on progress
- Leveraging social emotions to let others know we're human too
Over the coming weeks and months, I’m going to explore how we can work on each of these drivers to improve the happiness, engagement and productivity of our team members and ourselves.
But I don’t have all the answers.
Not even close.
So I hope you’ll join me and make this a true conversation. Perhaps even a community. I’d like to know how you’ve successfully engaged your teams, improved your culture and made work feel like a vital part of ‘work/life’ balance.
*A note about the title: Kilometre zero is a phrase that, upon my visit to Sardinia in 2017, locals use to describe something that’s locally produced. I like it very much – I felt it worked with this.
