Have you ever heard of Happy Engineering? Well, that’s what we do in ArkusNexus, we have created a work environment focused on inclusion, diversity, freedom and happy engineering that balances personal and professional growth of the software engineers we provide you.
Happy Engineering has led ArkusNexus to be consistently voted “Great Place to Work” and “Best Place to Code” 4 years in a row. We created a metric to measure Happy Engineering called Team’s Moral which evaluates different parameters such as: Work Load, Life-Work Balance, Career’s plan, Team work, just to mention some.
In 2020, the Happy Engineering metric achieved 88% of approval meaning that our relation between our clients and developers are above the average!
Happiness at work has a number of positive effects, such as increased collaboration, higher levels of innovation, and the desire to achieve common goals. So how do you create a happy workplace?
Although it sounds cliché, research shows year after year that the happiness of workers has a direct impact on the bottom line of companies. A team of researchers at the University of Warwick recently found that happy employees are 12% more productive than average, and 22% more productive than their unhappy coworkers.
As Dr. Daniel Sgroi, one of the main teachers participating in the study, explained: The driving force appears to be that happier workers use their time more effectively, increasing the rate at which they can work without sacrificing quality. Now, realizing that creating a happy workplace should be on your "to do list" is not the hard part, but finding the best way to keep your employees happy and productive.
To achieve a happy workplace, employees must be driven by something higher than mere financial benefits. To give meaning to life, it has to be a central part of the company culture. It must represent ways of creating happiness and enriching our professional lives and, to a certain extent, also defining our reason for existing.
When examining possible incentives to improve happiness in the workplace, it is important to consider the root causes of unhappiness.
Stress and excessive workload are common causes and side effects of professional life that’s why we measure them for the Happy Engineering metric. According to a recent study, many workers consider wellness initiatives at work a valuable option for reducing stress and burnout, or increasing happiness in the workplace. The effects they produce are also supported by a number of studies.
A study by Harvard University found that every dollar invested in wellness programs translates into $2.73 of reduced costs related to absenteeism. Another meta-analysis of 42 business welfare studies also observed a 25% reduction in sick leave and absenteeism, a 25% reduction in healthcare costs and a 32% reduction in disability and compensation costs from the workers.
Even though the pandemic made a lot of companies take this decision, not all of them see it as a priority. The work-life balance is accompanied by the desire for flexibility. Today, most office workers can work anywhere. Why not release them from the pressure and let them work at home?
It has been observed that work flexibility has a series of positive effects on individuals and companies as a whole: the main improvements refer to higher job satisfaction, productivity and levels of employee retention.
No less than 78% of the employees who work at home believe that with this system they feel happier. On the other hand, a significant proportion of the workforce (34%) would like to have the possibility of working at home and think that this would increase their happiness, but they are denied the privilege.
There is nothing more demotivating for a worker, or for a person in general, than not feeling valued. However, according to an analysis by Gallup, only one in three workers in the United States categorically affirms that they have received recognition or praise for doing a job well in the previous seven days.
In addition, workers who do not feel properly recognized are twice as likely to say that they will leave that job within a year. Praising and acknowledging a job well done provides an employee with a sense of accomplishment and makes them feel valued.
Consequently, how can you ensure that your teams are consistently recognized for putting in effort on the job? Congratulations and recognition can be one of the simplest (and least used) opportunities for supervisors and managers to create a happy workplace. Are you ready to start creating a Happy Engineering Environment?
