Do You Make Happy With Your Co-Workers?
I want to know. So does Alexander Kjerulf, self-proclaimed Chief Happiness Officer.
Alexander’s got a great blog about happiness, positivity and loving your work. It’s an infectious read, and might wake a few people up with a dose of inspiration.
Next Tuesday I’ll be posting an interview with Alexander about happiness in the workplace, entrepreneurship and his new book Happiness is 9 to 5 – Learn How to Love Your Job, Love Your Life and Kick Butt at Work!
Before doing that, I thought it’d be interesting to run a little contest – and Alex will donate his book as the prize (either in paper or digital format, it’ll be your choice.)
With that in mind, here’s the question:
What do you do to make your co-workers happy?
For the solopreneurs and home-based business folk who don’t have co-workers, feel free to use past history or take the question in a different direction and come up with something equally entertaining.
We’re not going to judge responses, but we do hope to get a lot of fun, humorous and enlightening ideas that can be shared by others. Hopefully Alex will promote some of the answers on his blog (a little link love never hurt!) and I’ll do the same.
The winner will be chosen randomly.
To answer the question either comment on this post or write your own blog post and link back.
The winner will be announced next Wednesday, the day after I post Alex’s interview.
So, what do you do to make your co-workers happy? We want to know! And you could win a great book in return.
I refrain from farting in the elevator.
But on a serious note, I think the biggest thing I do is take the time to say Hi and make friendly conversation with people. Work is easier when you can take a break for a moment and just interact as people.
I do my best to always say hi, be friendly, and ask how they’re doing and if there’s anything I can do to help. Rarely do people take me up on the offer, but several people have told me just knowing that I’m “there to help” is huge.
Of course, I think one of my co-workers trumps me in that she bakes brownies and cupcakes for the team.
I try and provide great customer service to all of my co-workers. For me, that means doing what they ask and doing it when they need it, being friendly, following up when needed, pro-actively offering to help them, and so on. :) It has worked pretty well so far.
I draw a cartoon.
Our group is a pretty close-knit bunch, usually making jokes and socializing outside the office. When someone says or does something funny, I like to make a note of it. Eventually, I’ll draw a little cartoon of it (Think MS Paint meets the Far Side) and send it around to the group.
We started a team social committee to improve our team’s morale – we organise all sorts of activities, from white water rafting expeditions to bowling to lunchtime BBQs… last week I brought in my Nintendo Wii from home for everyone to try, and next week we’re having a round robin competition to see who’s the best at Wii Tennis :)
Well, so far I’ve cleaned up the office we work in, gotten my team new desks, ergonomic mouse pads, desk organizers, some fun toys (cars, puzzles) for thier desks, organized a departmental xmas party (which no other department did), brought in a TV set (with Atari’s Pong!!), a radio. Oh, and started pushing for process automation so that the annoying repetitive tasks are done by computers instead of people. Last but not least, I’ve started sending out an e-mail every morning with some fun links and a comic (Get Fuzzy – my favoritest comic out there to date!)
Probably the single most recognized thing I’ve done is to start “Fruitball” which consists of taking old food in the breakroom outside and hitting it with an oversized wiffle bat. It started with fruit but has included eggs, yogurt and old chinese (we do it at the end of the day).
Still, conversing enough and delivering on promises outranks that or any other “tricks”.
I try to be the kind of co-worker that I’d like to work with.
Improving myself seems to be a good place to start.
Greet them with a smile. Responsive to their queries. Give them feedback for their queries. Give a helping hand, without asking. Have a friendly talk at least for 2 minutes in a day. enquire about their family. Send birthday wishes on their birthdays. I keep a calendar for those working in my department. Not stealing their credit. Viji
Tell them individually that you just love their passion to work and hope someday you reach it, and mean it.
I always make a point of saying “Thank you”, it’s amazing how two little words can light up a co-workers face – it’s just a shame it’s not used more often.
I deliver what I say I’m going to deliver when I say I’m going to deliver it. That way my co-workers can count on me.
It’s not pounding on the wall or something — but it really helps the work go right.
By joking around. I don’t make people happier by what I do in work, I make them happier by the way I do it.
Aside from being good at my job, and competent in doing what’s asked of me, the best thing I’ve found for making others happy at work is to find the things that interest others, then be sure to ask them about it, talk to them about it, mention interesting things about the subject that they like. Remembering that this person likes to run, or that that person really loves a particular TV show or band etc.
Makes people feel good if you can relate to them on a level besides just work/tasks.
I arrive at work dressed in my bright yellow cycle jacket and tight shorts! That _always_ get a smile.
Plus taking time to smile and say “Hello”, then chatting with my co-workers makes a big difference to the work day.
I find that making a personal connection with people is so important – such as asking them something about their weekend or their hobbies.
It makes me happy when my co-workers are interested in me as a person – I can only assume it works the other way too!
I ask them “how are you doing”? with a genuine interest in the answer since most people are interested more in themselves. I remember birthdays and anniversaries. Be a good listener and focus attention directly at them instead of being distracted.
GP in Montana