As studies have shown time and time again, happy teams are productive teams. So if you want to boost your team’s productivity, team happiness is definitely one of the goals that you should be setting yourself. It’s not just a matter of teamwork. When people are happy they work better and faster, whether as a team or as individuals.
So now you know how to boost your team’s productivity. Make them happy. How do you make them happy? Here are a few ways.
#1. Daily meetings contribute to wellbeing at work
Daily meetings (short daily meetings of course) are an excellent way to start off the day, and give your team a sense of purpose.
These meetings should be open to all, meaning that any team member can speak their mind and offer their own opinion. They can bring their own ideas to the table, and feel that they have a real and tangible contribution to the team’s work, and the company’s success as a whole. When people are ‘engaged’ like this in the company’s decisions, they are more dedicated, and yes, happier.
By the way, you can also have these meetups in the middle of the day, as that creates a nice little break for your team, and they can have a breather before going on with the rest of their day.
#2. Track their mood
While you should be aware of your team as individuals, tracking the mood of the entire team is invaluable. Of course if you see that one of your team members isn’t happy you should have a talk with them, and see if you can help them resolve any issues that they may be having, but being able to judge the overall mood of the team is an excellent way to head off any problems that might happen.
For instance, if people are becoming unhappy simply because they don’t have a coffee machine (and yes, we’ve seen that happen ☺), recognizing the fact that this is causing the entire team to underperform helps find a solution. In this case, it’s easy (just buy a coffee machine), but still – tracking the team’s mood is what helped find the underlying cause of the unhappiness.
If you wanna try to follow the mood of your people, we have you covered with TeamMood!
#3. Positive feedback
You want your team members to be happy and improve their wellbeing at work? Tell them you appreciate them! It is literally as simple as that. It’s amazing at how a few simple compliments – when deserved – will brighten someone’s day up, and turn them into a far happier (and productive) person.
#4. Show how to prioritize
It doesn’t matter if it’s the developers launching the product on time, the Sales team meeting their quota, or the IT guys getting through all their helpdesk tickets - Getting work done contributes to the team happiness. You can’t always do EVERYTHING, of course, but you can certainly get the most urgent stuff done.
And how does the team to that? By prioritizing. But how does your team know what to prioritize? Is the login feature more important than the Facebook share feature? Is the negotiation with ACME company more important than finding a connection to Vandelay Industries? That’s where you come in. As the team manager, it’s your job to help the team understand what is more important, so they can start clearing the workload off their desks, and yes, feel more accomplished.
#5. Delegation
Successful teamwork – and one of the keys to happy teams – is delegation. You can’t do everything yourself, and you shouldn’t have to. Share responsibilities with your key workers, give tasks to individuals and share the workload in general with your team, and not only will it be easier for you to get your job done, they will feel more appreciated and trusted. And team members that feel like the team leader trusts them will try harder.
All in all, you see that making people feeling better at the workplace can be pretty easily done.