Nearly all people believe that happiness at work is possible, according to a 2021 Workplace Happiness Study commissioned by Indeed and conducted by Forrester Consulting. Yet, for many of us, that happiness is elusive. Some industries are more notorious for unhappy environments than others, and tech is one of them.
Work is a substantial portion of our lives, and if people are spending that time unhappy — well, that’s a problem. Certainly, some of it is up to the individual, but tech leaders also play a substantial role in ensuring that their team members are thriving.
Of course, you surely want your workers to be happy for their own sake. But bear in mind that there are advantages for you as well. For example, in the battle for tech talent, don’t you want to present your workplace as one that values your team members’ personal well-being? That’s how you’ll attract new talent and encourage retention in your existing ones.
Moreover, research shows additional benefits to happiness in the workplace, such as increased productivity, quality, sales, creativity, innovation, and flexibility, as well as decreased financial losses, absences, and stress.
Sound good? Here’s how to cultivate a happier tech workplace.
What Does It Mean to Be Happy at Work?
Of course, happiness is not a uniform concept or standard, and happiness at work means something different to each individual.
One study looked at a model that focuses on factors that include mood experience, pleasant emotions, and job satisfaction. According to the model, there are three dimensions of work happiness:
- Job satisfaction, feelings about the job, and aspects of the job
- Organizational commitment
- Engagement and positive feelings
The study acknowledges that different factors and characteristics play a role in each dimension. For example, salary, promotion, level of danger, and schedule affect the first dimension, while the company’s environment and size impact the second, and the employee’s gender, age, relationship status, and level of education play a role in the third.
The Workplace Happiness Study commissioned by Indeed found that people often misjudge what affects their own happiness at work. According to the survey, factors like being energized by work, feeling like you belong, and having a sense of purpose outrank pay.
That said, while happiness is not a tangible concept that can be easily measured, there are certain steps tech companies can take to provide a workplace that is more conducive to employee contentment, satisfaction, and well-being.
How to Cultivate a Happier Tech Workplace
1. Foster a Sense of Purpose
While there are many definitions of happiness at work, one common thread is that people are motivated by a sense of purpose. Most individuals want to derive meaning from their work — a quality that has shifted since the onset of the pandemic. In late 2021, Gartner surveyed more than 3,500 workers around the world, and 65% said that “the pandemic had made them rethink the place work should have in their life,” while 56% said that “it made them want to contribute more to society.”
This was one factor that led to the Great Resignation, where individuals left their jobs in unprecedented numbers. In today’s world, people want work that is driven by values and a clear mission. They want to feel like they are a part of something.
A tech company is rarely just focused on tech. Technological solutions are there to solve problems — sometimes in life-changing ways. Tech companies are founded with a purpose and mission. So, reigniting that sense of purpose, well, makes sense.
How do you make sure your mission is front and center so that everyone who works within your organization feels and is working toward it together? People want to know that they are contributing. They want to be a part of something bigger and make a positive impact. In order to fuel that idea, employers should involve everyone in that mission. Remind people what you stand for and how you are influencing change.
Moreover, remind your people that they matter. Tell them how each and every role makes a difference. Cultivate a sense of belonging through team building and all-hands exercises and meetings.
Leaders should get in the weeds, so to speak, and work alongside team members at all levels. This will help drive home the idea that this is a community, not just a company that helps pay the bills.
2. Create Opportunities to Build Connections
An environment that is more conducive to relationship building is also more conducive to happiness. Unfortunately, in a world where remote work is becoming more and more commonplace, building connections is a bit more difficult than it was when the majority of workers were going into a brick-and-mortar workplace. When people are working in isolation, they may feel less connected to their team — and, therefore, less happy as a result.
That doesn’t mean employers should just ignore connection building, though. This is an important part of a happier workplace. And leaders have the power to help cultivate workplace camaraderie and solidify collegial relationships and a sense of support.
Zoom happy hours and regular check-ins have become commonplace — and some team members may feel exhausted by them at this point. When you’re looking for ways to build up connections at work and better support your staff, be creative and consider alternatives.
For example, perhaps you could have welcome sessions for new team members, where you all share fun facts about yourselves and learn more about one another. Or you might host trivia games where teams work together to respond to questions — all while getting to know one another and the company better.
Learning opportunities, too, are a great way for team members to both work together and further their education and careers. Workshops and seminars, particularly interactive ones, can build skills and engage people while helping them build connections with one another and develop camaraderie. At the same time, you’re boosting the knowledge and competencies of your workforce and encouraging collaboration.
3. Make Employees Feel Safe
“Happiness starts from within and is tied to that sense of higher purpose,” said Jenn Lim, bestselling author of Beyond Happiness: How Authentic Leaders Prioritize Purpose and People for Growth and Impact and CEO of Delivering Happiness.
Making your team members feel safe is a multifaceted concept. Tech is a notoriously stressful industry, and your staff could very well be grappling with mental health or psychological issues and personal matters. You must make it easy for them to share the challenges they are facing with you without the fear of coming across as unprofessional. While you can’t necessarily help solve the problem for them, you can lend a sympathetic ear and support them through whatever they’re grappling with.
Of course, there are work challenges, too, and your team members need to be able to come to you, their leader, when they feel overwhelmed or are dealing with obstacles. It’s your job to make them feel safe approaching you with these matters and help them work through them without the fear of repercussions.
Additionally, there should be room for your workers to make mistakes. In industries like tech in particular, innovation and creativity are critical for survival. Your team members need to have the ability to experiment — again, without the fear of failure or consequences. Mistakes will happen, and they absolutely should in order for your company to realize its goals and achieve scalability.
How can leaders make their team members feel safe at their companies? For starters, consider implementing an open-door policy. That means that your staff should be able to come to you with concerns, questions, or anything that’s on their mind. Additionally, make a concerted effort to check in routinely. And really listen when they talk to you. There may very well be problems you can’t resolve for them, but often, all they really need is to feel like their manager is listening to them and supporting them.
4. Recognize Employees
People want to feel valued and appreciated — that’s only natural. And when your team members do have that sense of value, they are happier with their employer and their work environment.
How can you make your people feel appreciated? Tell them so! Recognize your team members for their contributions. Many companies do this when their workers achieve noteworthy accomplishments — a software developer produces a particularly compelling application, catches a large number of bugs, or turns around results at an impressive speed — but recognition and praise shouldn’t be limited to relatively rare events.
While initiatives like awards programs certainly have their place, even small tokens of appreciation for everyday accomplishments and efforts can go a long way in making professionals feel appreciated.
Think about the seemingly minor ways you can recognize your tech talent. For example, you might send a quick email after one of your team members has a profound insight that they voice in a meeting. Or, you could buy someone a cup of coffee because you know how hard they work every single day. Even a brief “thank you for all that you do” can go a long way in making your workers feel valued.
This also ties back to focusing on your mission and making your team a part of that. When you recognize your team members, you are telling them that you believe they are contributing in valuable and meaningful ways to your larger mission and purpose. They not only feel useful — they feel like they are key participants in bringing about the change you are trying to manifest and are more content as a result.
5. Provide Support
What’s a clear destroyer of happiness? Stress. Given the demands in the tech industry, it’s no surprise that mental health is a huge concern, with more than half of professionals in the field saying that they have been diagnosed with a mental health condition and 57% reporting burnout.
The high stakes of the tech industry make it impossible to completely eliminate stress and other mental health concerns from the workplace. In fact, you would be hard-pressed to find any job that is completely devoid of stress. But there are ways that leaders can lessen the effects of mental health challenges and lift some of the burden.
Providing support to your team members is critical. It is important to catch potential concerns before they escalate and interfere with their professional and personal lives. This means proactively checking in and asking specific questions about how your team members are coping with and handling their workloads. Do they feel overwhelmed? Do they have any issues?
If your workers do report feeling stressed or overwhelmed, offer specific suggestions about steps you can take together to resolve the problem, rather than asking what you can do to help. Perhaps, for example, they need more detailed information about how to proceed with a project or need a tutorial about how to accomplish a given task. Or maybe you or another team member could assist by taking on some components of the project.
The main point is to be as supportive as possible. Never be dismissive of your staff’s concerns. Always listen and be understanding. This leads to a better, happier work environment.
6. Be Flexible
Flexibility is a must in today’s climate. People are juggling a number of demands, both personally and professionally, and there are new ways and styles of working. If you are unable to accommodate these changes in work modalities and offer flexibility, you will not only contribute to resentment among your team members, but you could also be driving up attrition rates.
For example, providing hybrid and fully remote options can help your professionals foster a better work-life balance, allowing them to feel more comfortable and content with their work. Additionally, being accommodating of the unique challenges different team members face is another way to create a happier work culture. Offering flexible hours to a parent who has to pick up their kids at a certain time is one example of a way to accommodate different needs and demands.
In fact, employee wellness isn’t the only advantage of building a more flexible workplace. According to Gartner research, organizations that afford their professionals more flexibility with regard to when, where, and how much they work say more than half of their employees are high performers. This is in comparison to just 36% of high performers at companies with inflexible work environments.
That’s right — it’s not just about a happier workplace: flexibility means a better workplace for everyone.
7. Be Honest and Transparent
Finally, it has become increasingly important to establish a culture of trust.
These days, there is an abundance of misinformation. Some companies are being called out for secrecy and a lack of transparency with their team members and/or the public. This can wreak havoc on your company culture and brand.
Honesty and transparency are principles to adhere to as a leader. Your team members are more likely to be content with their work and their company if they can trust their employer.
Moreover, in the digital world, so much can be lost in translation, leading to miscommunication — and, even worse, mistrust. As part of your efforts as a business to be honest, straightforward, and transparent, it is important to make your communications as clear as possible.
Before you hit send on every message, whether it’s to an entire team or a single employee, read it over first. If it’s particularly sensitive, get another set of eyes on it. Is your meaning obvious? Could any part of it be misinterpreted? Are you positive that your message is getting through to the intended recipient? Only when you can confidently say yes to all of these questions should you deliver the communication.
In turn, work to trust your team members. If you are unable to trust the people on your team, then you are not living up to the principles of honesty and transparency. Start with the mindset of assuming everyone has the best intentions. Of course, people can lose your trust through missteps, but if you start out thinking that they are not being forthcoming with you, then how can you expect them to trust you?
Trusting your team means operating with the assumption that they are strong and capable of doing their jobs without frequent input or micromanaging from you. The latter leads to resentment in the vast majority of cases, and you don’t want that. That does not make for happy individuals — or a happy workplace.
A happier workplace leads to a more successful company. If you want your team members to thrive — career-wise and personally — then you want them to be content. This is how you can make your tech organization one that not only turns around amazing innovations but also makes your team members excited to show up to work each and every day.
