Dear Colleagues,

With March now upon us, many employers are faced with employees who will enter a bit of a slump in the next weeks and months. The excitement of the New Year has passed and New Years' resolutions have gone by the wayside. The cold, dark, and dreary days of winter are still here. No statutory holidays are in sight until April.

Regardless of the time of year, but in particular during the challenging winter months, employers need to pay particular attention to ensuring that employees remain engaged at work. Employees want to be doing meaningful work, to receive feedback, and to enjoy the people they work with. These are some of the factors that help your employees to thrive, and by extension, contribute to the success of your business.

In this edition of HR Smalltalk, we'll look at some of the factors that researchers have found that lead to employees thriving. We hope that you will incorporate some of these suggestions into your business.

We welcome your comments and suggestions on HR Smalltalk. Feel free to contact us at 604.688.3879 or email us at info@clearhrconsulting.com.

Warm regards,

Cissy Pau
Principal Consultant
Clear HR Consulting Inc.


DOES YOUR WORK ENVIRONMENT HELP YOU THRIVE?

A recent read of the New York Times best-selling author Dan Buettner's "Thrive - Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way" about world-wide research into the principles of contentment and satisfaction got us thinking. How can we apply the research of thriving to the workplace and to business success?

Given we spend much of our daily lives at work, ensuring that our employees are in the right job and in the right environment can be critical to the success of your business.

Based on Buettner's analysis of the scientific research, here are 7 factors on which employers can focus to help their employees to thrive, which in turn, will help the business to thrive:

• Job - You need to ensure that your staff are using their talents, being consistent with their values, and are challenged to an optimal level. Their tasks cannot be too difficult or too easy. If employees don't consider their work as important, challenging and can feel good about it, then they need to move to a job that does.


• Feedback - It's often been said that people don't leave companies, they leave bad bosses. Having an effective manager is critical to employee satisfaction and productivity, and receiving meaningful feedback is often a way to measure management effectiveness. Some key skills to develop in this area in your management team are: communicating clear expectations, providing regular positive and constructive feedback, recognizing successes, and promoting open communication and listening.


• Control of Work - One reason that people often want to run their own business is to exercise more control over their own work. To allow employees to thrive, managers need to delegate more control and ownership of their tasks to the employees, and allow time on "pet projects" that employees are passionate about.


• Socializing - To get the most out of employees, they need to get along well with their colleagues, clients and partners. Socializing outside of work hours with likeable co-workers can be highly satisfying. Encouraging social activities, whether meals, birthday & holiday celebrations, or sporting activities can be great ways to boost morale.


• Commute - Lengthy and stressful commutes can negatively impact employees' productivity. It's best to select a work location that is easily accessible by staff, to encourage low impact commuting such as walking, biking, & transit, and to implement tele-commuting where feasible.


• Work Hours - Consistently working lengthy overtime hours is a recipe for stress, burnout, absenteeism and reduced productivity. Encourage your staff to a keep regular work hours to allow time for family, personal matters and/or social activities.


• Vacations - In a similar vein, taking vacations (and leaving the smart phones and laptops at home) provides for rest, rejuvenation, and lower stress. Time away often allows for greater productivity upon return. Take steps to ensure that employees take their allotted vacation time each year.

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