Being assigned as the ‘happiness champion’ on my second week of work came to me as a shock, I was like “wow, am I such a happy person?” But going through my past life experiences I was like “hell yeah I am a happy go lucky kind of girl”.
Being at the front desk of our offices makes me the first face my colleagues see at the very beginning of each workday. So as soon as I get to work I make myself a nice cup of tea and put on my cheerful smile to greet my awesome colleagues. It’s nice to chit chat a bit in the morning before everyone set their minds to their computer and start working, especially on a Monday – after the weekend everyone has something to say and what type of craziness they got themselves into. Isn’t everything better when you have nice sociable colleagues to work with? Of course it is!
What does happiness at work really achieve?
Happy people fix problems instead of complaining about them, they have more energy and are therefore more efficient at everything they do, have a more optimistic outlook and optimists are way more successful and productive.
Happy people are way more motivated – when you’re happy and relaxed, you’re much more open to learning new things at work and therefore increase your productivity. When you’re happy at work the occasional mistake doesn’t bother you much. You pick yourself up, learn
from it and move on. You also don’t mind admitting to others that you screwed up, but you simply take responsibility, apologize and fix it. This relaxed attitude means that fewer mistakes are made, and that you’re more likely to learn from them.
Happy people make better, more informed decisions and are able to prioritize their work. If people are in a good mood on a given day, they’re more likely to have creative ideas, and in our line of work creative ideas are the most important ones!
There seems to be a cognitive process that sets up when people are feeling good, and this leads to more flexible, fluent and original thinking.
So what do I do to make everyone at the office simply happier? It’s just simple things, but these little things make a huge change to someone’s perspective when they have a busy schedule. So I make it a priority to help others in the office when I’m a little loose from my own work – it could be anything from a phone call to filing to chasing payments etc. but a tiny bit of help here and there makes everyone feel better. Even a smile while passing in the corridor helps, so my main job is keeping a nice big smile on my face, it helps everyone to see a happy face in the office.
I love baking and baking makes me happy, so I also bring some of my happiness to work – and believe me everyone feels happier when there is a cake in the kitchen!
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