Somewhere between anxiety and boredom lies enjoyment. It's finding that point for your staff that's the challenge.
In my twenty years of speaking and travelling, I can only remember a handful of workplaces where people were really enjoying themselves. To help people clarify their purpose, I occasionally ask people if they would continue to work if they won $10 million. Would you? Would your staff?
Since your staff spend so much time and energy at work, wouldn’t it be better to create an enjoyable workplace culture? If people really enjoyed their work, they wouldn’t have to work again. A fulfilling week will leave them free to enjoy their weekends. As Australia is about to outstrip Japan as the country that works the longest hours, we need to provide workplaces that allow our staff to truly enjoy their leisure time and return to work refreshed, motivated and looking forward to the week. They will also be less likely to leave.
So what is the difference between work-time and free-time? What is the difference between a weekday and a weekend? Research indicates that people, especially men, underestimate the importance of work in their lives. They also overestimate how much pleasure their leisure activities bring them. The aim is to create an atmosphere that people want to be in, so it doesn't feel like work.
Here are some ingredients to making your workplace enjoyable.
Challenge
Your staff need to stretch their abilities to feel satisfaction with their achievements. Same old...same old, won’t bring satisfaction or contentment. You need to try new activities and challenges that seem just out of reach.
Does your workplace provide your staff with challenges? If it doesn’t, create some. If they aren’t doing any formal study, get them to choose an area to stretch their knowledge. Raise the bar. Set a challenge for your organisation and management team for this year. Not too high but just out of reach.
Goals
No goals is a path to mediocrity. Achieving budget is a sure way of getting bored. I have lost track of the number of times that managers have told me that their goal for the year is to achieve budget. They also set budgets by increasing last year’s performance by a round figure that is easy to calculate. Let’s say 10%.
Encourage your staff to set clear goals, particularly ones related to business performance, personal development or education. Make the goals specific so they can measure progress. Then help them to plan to achieve their goals.
Rules
Work provides rules, sometimes too many. Too many rules stifle creativity. If your managers work as a team, seek their input in creating some ground rules to improve performance.
Keep these rules to a minimum but stick to the ones agreed on. Some stifled organisations have only one rule ‘Do what you are told’.
Risk
Risk is the flip side of challenge. If there is no risk, there is no challenge. We all manage risk in our lives. Too much risk leads to anxiety, too little leads to boredom. You need to decide how much risk you are willing to take in pursuit of a challenge and then add a little.
Some organisations live in the shadow of fear. Change nothing. Risk nothing. Changing nothing is the biggest risk. Others take the smallest incremental risks. You need to decide what is good for you and your organisation. By staring fear in the face, you realise that it is mostly an illusion. Pity to be intimidated or domesticated by a fear that may never happen.
Have a plan in place but don’t be paralysed by a false fear. We are building a risk averse society. Imagine a ball landing in the gutter at the local school. You would need to find a teacher with a certificate in 'ball fetching' with a licence for 'ladder use'. Preferably a Diploma in both.
Feedback
Ensure your workplace provides feedback. I often hear from Gen X and Y that they don’t get sufficient feedback from their managers. They only hear when something goes wrong.
Make sure that you are giving and receiving honest feedback. If you aren’t providing enough, give and ask for more - and ask for positives and negatives. If you give positive feedback to others you will subtly influence them to do the same for you. The quality of relationships in your workplace is vital for creating an enjoyable environment. Honest feedback is a building block for these relationships.
So if you want to make your workplace more productive and enjoyable, make sure you have just the right amount of challenge, goals, rules, risks and feedback.
Wouldn’t you like your staff to honestly say ‘I enjoy my work so much that I don’t look forward to Fridays. I enjoy every day’?
Your workplace will rock if you let it!
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The Art Of Influence