Happy Employees lead to Happier Customers and Better Business according to Maartje and Fennande
Maartje Wolff and Fennande van der Meulen are co-founders of the Happy Office. With their knowledge, experience, and network they see it as their mission to put happiness@work on as much corporate agenda as possible. Research shows time and again that happy people perform better. So by inspiring people how to be or become happy, they ensure organizations perform better.
Maartje and Fennande are running a workshop on The power of purpose – How purpose drives employee happiness and company results at the Business Agility Day. They are also running a second workshop at the Design Innovation day on Design Thinking: your guide to innovation and happiness. In addition, they are conducting a full-day workshop titled How to build a happy & resilient team?
To meet Maartje and Fennande and to attend their workshop please Register Here.
Why is happiness important to Business Agility and how is it relevant to Business Organizations?
While Business agility means that organizations are able to respond to new developments in the market at lightning speed, it also means that people need to be flexible, resilient, creative and innovative. Research shows that being happy at work is a major contributor to this kind of behavior. So having a happy working culture is important.
How do we foster happiness in our organizations?
As John Bersin of Forbes says: ‘To build an organization that is exciting, fulfilling, meaningful and fun.’ Organisations are not responsible for the happiness of people. But, they can help by providing a clear, inspiring and appealing purpose; by following a strategy that focuses on happiness at work; by implementing a structure that facilitates happiness and by stimulating happiness-related behavior.
Why is it important to have a purpose at work and how do we find it?
Science is clear about the fact that people who know their purpose are healthier, stronger and live longer. Having a clear sense of purpose makes it easier to take difficult decisions because your purpose can be the measuring rod to check the best options. It can be the organizing principle in your life. Having a clear purpose fuels our intrinsic motivation: we do things without thinking about the external (financial) rewards. We do things because we want to because it fulfills us. We care about the outcome. And that is a very positive emotion; it makes us happy in the longer term.
Having a clear and shared purpose is also essential for organizational success. When all employees know the organizational purpose and feel connected to it, they are more inspired and engaged. They are happier and make their colleagues and customers happier. Finding your purpose starts by asking you the right questions. Why do I come out of my bed every morning? What really drives me? Why do I do the things I do?
Try to challenge yourself by asking yourself at least 5 times WHY. Your final answer is the closest to your purpose.
What are the key takeaways from your talks for the attendees? Is there something they can apply immediately to their work?
The key takeaways from The Power of Purpose are:
- a clear definition of what a purpose is
- a good understanding of what having an organizational purpose can do for your business
- a good idea of what you can do to find your purpose
- a framework to search for their own organizational purpose
- a great experience of what the Purpose Journey Game can do for your organization
After this workshop, they have enough insights and a possible tool to explore their own organizational purpose and to start their purpose journey. And hopefully, they feel activated to take the necessary steps;-).
The key takeaways of Design Thinking: your guide to innovation and happiness are:
- A clear understanding of why happiness at work is so important for business success and what creativity and innovation have to do with it.
- New insights of how the five steps of design thinking can lead to a better employee experience and more happiness.
Tell us a little about the workshop and how it will be helpful?
Research shows that being happy at work makes us 12% more productive. Happy employees lead to happier customers and better business. In this one-day workshop, we share our knowledge and experience on how to transform your team into a happier team. Based on the science of happiness at work and our own experience in facilitating teams to cooperate better, to be more creative and innovative, to solve problems and to create more happiness for themselves, their colleagues and their clients. In this workshop, the attendants get more insights about how to measure happiness and the practical steps to work agile on more happiness within teams (activating methods).