By Jayne Worthington, above, Group CEO of The Progress Group
Many academic studies have linked employee happiness with productivity, but it can be easy to overlook the vital role the ‘happy metric’ has in the long-term success of your business.
Economic research by the University of Warwick suggests that happy people can be 12% more productive at work – and similar notable stats have been seen in other studies too. Happiness in the workplace means much more than how productive a team can be though – it can be fundamental to your growth.
Your employees can be a driving force behind your business. Having a team of people who are happy in your company culture and motivated by your purpose, is an important part of this – but how do you make that happen?
A shared purpose
What makes a happy place to work goes beyond numbers. It’s the feeling your people have, the pride they take in everything they do and a sense of belonging. For us, there’s a shared desire to be better and to do more, to achieve our common purpose of changing lives through the power of education and training.
Lots of businesses talk about being ‘purpose-driven’ and although perhaps an overused phrase, the reality is that a strong shared purpose can be a powerful asset. It should flow through everything you do – strengthening teams, motivating individuals, informing decisions and helping to ensure everyone is rowing in the same direction.
Creating this in collaboration with your employees, can be a good way to make it meaningful for your team – so it resonates, everyone understands it, and it doesn’t become an empty strapline.
Understand what employees value
Take time to find out what really matters to your employees and how best to reward their work. Salary of course needs to be comparable to the market and have sight of the increasing cost of living. But things like being able to attend the school concert or sports day, supporting an elderly parent and being there for your family, help during times of crisis, and having a healthy work-life balance, can be valuable beyond monetary terms.
We’ve introduced several employee initiatives throughout the year, to help our team get that balance, and make working life work better for them. Our Summer Friday Flex scheme proved particularly popular – giving colleagues the chance to finish early during the summer season. This has helped some with childcare challenges during the holidays, as well as giving the flexibility to head off early to enjoy the weather, take a walk or meet friends.
To support wellbeing and mental health, we also provided access to a series of online meditation sessions and have run lots of group-wide communications during the year to remind colleagues to take a break and remember to connect with others. This is particularly important now many are hybrid working.
New perspectives
The newly released Global Workplace Report 2024 provides interesting new analysis into key factors influencing employee happiness and what matters to them most.
Unsurprisingly flexibility is named as a major player here. Like so many workplaces, ours changed significantly post-pandemic. The forced move to more remote working proved things could work differently, that there wasn’t a necessity to always be present in an office to do a good job. For our group of businesses, this meant we reviewed our office space premises – we no longer needed the scale of head office we previously had, which gave us the opportunity to invest more into our employee benefits instead.
Your ‘Happiness’ metrics
What makes your employees happy will change over time, so checking how you’re performing as an employer is helpful. Earlier this year we were named in The Sunday Times Best Places to Work, having taken part for the first time in the employee research conducted and analysed by WorkL. It was a valuable process, allowing us to see what was striking a chord across the business, as well as areas we can strengthen.
Nurturing a team is an important part of being a leader for me. Early in my career I experienced working in an unhappy workplace and felt the impact this has on individual wellbeing and team performance. I vowed that when I had the opportunity, I would create a business culture where its people are at the heart – somewhere where I would want to work and be proud of what we achieved together. A happy metric may not be within your business strategy yet, but there can be huge opportunities for business to progress when you let it take a place on the centre stage.
Having a happy team, gives back in spades – ultimately playing an important part in future success.
Jayne Worthington is Group CEO of The Progress Group – an award-winning family of specialist businesses – changing lives through the power of education and training. The Progress Group was named in The Sunday Times Best 100 Places To Work (medium sized business) 2024. Jayne has led the recent growth of the Group – including the acquisition of three tech companies, a group-wide rebrand and the development of an extensive employee engagement programme.