Make your Team a Happy Team – Part 3

It is a proven fact, happy employees add more to your business and increase your profitability.

They are way more productive, less likely to change jobs, take less sick leave, and have more energy which they are willing to invest in your business.

They will also have a higher achievement rate than their unhappy counterparts.

But there is a big difference between happiness and engagement factors, and the key to a happy team lays in knowing how to combine both in balance.

These are a few suggestions you can try to help achieve this balance, plus a higher level of profitability.

1. Team engagement starts with your commitment

Take the time to get to know your team members as individuals.

Getting to know them will tell you how to motivate them. It’s the details what will show them you care about them as people, not just workers –only, in order to do so, you will genuinely have to care.

2. Give them the tools and training for their personal growth

They will know that you’re invested in them if you take the time to develop their skills, challenge them to learn more, do more and accomplish more; give them the ability to move forward within the company.

3. Listen to your team members

Every member of your team is motivated differently, so review them often so you can learn how to find what is the perfect combination of programs and resources for that person.
Once you get their feedback, act on it.

4. Boost teamwork through team-building activities

Your relationship with your team members is important, but so is the close relationship between teammates.
When you encourage this kind of friendship through team-based projects, and team-building activities, this creates a sense of responsibility and accountability within the team –they don’t want to let their mates down.

5. Use rewards and incentives

These are huge motivators for most workers, also non-cash related awards, and inside-the-team recognition programs are excellent tools for engagement.

An engaged workforce is a happy, productive workforce, and that is always good for your business.

Work towards developing your team members as individuals, help them become their best versions of themselves, and you will be well on your way to happy and engaged teams.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this Team Happiness series of articles, and that you were able to implement them into your business strategies.

See you next week.

Stay strong!

One of the core values we have as a company is to inspire and empower people in all aspects of their lives. Additionally, if you want to read about our Custom Software Solutions and Consulting Services, please visit www.isucorp.ca

Make your team a Happy Team - Part 1

Not everyone knows where to start when it comes to team happiness. Many managers –whether in sports, business, or any other category, mistakenly think that providing incentives (paid vacations, bonuses, or foosball tables) will make their people happy.

In part, those tangible benefits contribute to retaining a workforce, but to achieve real happiness and fulfillment, you’d need something more.

As a starting point, you must ensure that your organization core values are aligned to produce a commitment for excellence besides contentment.

We all know this: a happy team creates a happy business, scores, and achievements in general.  But what does “happy” mean in this context?

Basically, it is about the need every human being has to be significant. It also has to do with contribution, and finally, with growth. We all need to know that what we are, and what we do, matters; and that it helps make a difference in the world. That’s the way we grow, and become better.

In all this, the team or company culture plays a pivotal role.

Research indicates that not only money makes team players happy; it takes something far less tangible: trust.
Trust in a team makes each member more productive, excited and innovative in whatever it is their task at hand.
Brain physiology studies demonstrated that oxytocin enables trust, connection, and generosity, which in turn allows contentment.
There is a flip side of this coin, high levels of stress (the opposite of happiness) inhibits the oxytocin, decreasing team bonding and positive interaction.

If you intend to take your team to a higher level, take every measure possible to reduce stress so that team members can get their jobs done efficiently and without burning out.

All in all, the best strategies to ensure team happiness and performance are leader recognition, peer recognition, achievable workloads and assignments, clear leadership, and deliberate relationship-building.

Next week we’ll talk about team members’ personalities and how to leverage this in favor of the team.

Until then, stay strong!

One of the core values we have as a company is to inspire and empower people in all aspects of their lives. Additionally, if you want to read about our Custom Software Solutions and Consulting Services, please visit www.isucorp.ca

Put Your Procrastination under the Magnifying Glass

We all had fallen into the bottomless pit of procrastination; I know I had, more than once… and I’d bet that you had too.

When it happens, we tend to think of it as just one unique way to avoid something; but if we were to get a magnifying glass and look closely, we would see that there are actually different reasons why we tend to get into procrastination mode.

Before we can work on getting rid of or circumventing our delaying habits, we need to understand where they’re coming from.

Let’s look through that glass and see the main reasons we fall into procrastination, and also some simple ways to overcome them:

1.    Feeling Overwhelmed

There are times when you’re faced with the complexity of a task at hand, and you think “there is no way I can get this done by x time… let’s channel-surf for a while instead”…  
Surely you’re familiar with this kind of Overwhelm-procrastination, which is the urge to avoid tasks that are just too big that you don’t know how to tackle them; you don’t find a way into it, so you put it off for as long as you possibly can, and find all kinds of excuses.

One easy way to overcome this feeling is to break big goals into small, concrete steps (often called “chunks”) you can work on right away.

2.   Fear

There are times when we avoid taking action just because taking that next step requires us to push ourselves into the unknown territory of “the Next Level”. Setting a higher year income, getting into a new market, writing your new chapter, or submitting the book to a publisher… we put these things off because they are Uncertainty incarnated… The Unknown, and we tend to assume the worst.

In this kind of situation, we go into survival mode; something that must have been helpful to the average caveman back in prehistoric times, but it is not for our own state of mind or achievement.

In this case, the best remedy against fear is faith, trust, confidence, and resolution. There is nothing to worry about, what doesn’t go well becomes a learning experience.
Again, tiny first steps are the best way to start; remember: you don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take one step at the time.

3.   Lack of Incentive

We, humans, are wired to instinctively seek comfort. In order to motivate us out of the couch, we need a clear benefit –that or a big mean dog chasing our butts into discomfort. In other words, if we don’t think going to the gym is bringing us a tangible value, we won’t do it… why change things when we’re so comfy, right?

If we want to get results when there is no sense of urgency, we have to be able to visualize the potential pain that inaction will bring to us. Pain is a bigger motivator than pleasure, but we also have to envision the rewards of actually taking action.

This way, we have the stick and the carrot that will make us move and keep us moving.

Let’s say you want to lose some weight; it’s much easier to stay watching television and eating ice-cream than it is to face the reality that, if we keep this behavior, in a year or less we might look like the giant rock ball that chased Indiana Jones at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

That image alone might be enough to get you to the gym.

Next time you’re faced with a project you just can’t seem to tackle, no matter how many times you write on your planner or put it on your to-do list; you need to figure out exactly why you’re avoiding it.

You need to see things clear first in order to lean the ladder against the right wall.

That way, every step we climb is getting closer to the right place.

When you get there, you will feel really, really good.

Stay strong!

One of the core values we have as a company is to inspire and empower people in all aspects of their lives. Additionally, if you want to read about our Custom Software Solutions and Consulting Services, please visit www.isucorp.ca