While cultivating employee happiness often rests on the shoulders of those in People Ops, it requires a holistic approach with buy-in from everyone throughout an organization. We’d be remiss for even insinuating that higher salaries wouldn’t have a positive effect on employee happiness, but most organizations can’t just throw that kind of cash at the problem, and further the happiness boost tends to be temporary. 

Along those lines…

Don’t: Rely on surface-level frills

Employee happiness can be a tricky nut to crack because what makes one employee happy might not factor into another employee’s happiness whatsoever. Furthermore, surface-level frills can add some pizzazz and attract talent initially, but they don’t necessarily equate to a happier work culture and long-term retention.

Kombucha on tap? Ping pong tables in the breakroom? While most employees would agree that these are all nice perks to have, they won’t turn a sour work culture sweet on their own because it’s been shown that employees really feel valued when their employer cares about their well-being. Often, these are not tangible things but are scarce resources like time, energy and true support of their life outside of the office. Your employees won’t care about having nap pods if they do not feel valued as humans. 

Tilt Recap: Frills can be a component of a happy culture, but do not make a happy workforce.

Do: Focus on the foundational

Fortunately, there are foundational considerations that if properly addressed can do wonders to bring your employee happiness quotient skyward for the long haul without breaking the bank or your bandwidth. One such example of a foundational benefit that directly impacts employee happiness and customer satisfaction is the leave of absence process your employees experience when life happens and they need to step away from the office.

A leave of absence is a defining experience for your employees. Lance Haun from The Starr Conspiracy describes employee experience as “the perception of the quality of all the experiences at work, and our perceptions are driven by defining moments in that experience.”

In that light, a positive leave experience can strengthen an employee’s resolve to continue great work for your organization when they return. A poor experience, on the other hand, can have the opposite effect leading to turnover, potential fines, and work gap breakdowns. All of which can cause a negative ripple effect from organization-wide morale to failing to deliver on promises to your customers.

An arcade machine can’t paper over a poor defining experience for your employees. 

Tilt Recap: The foundational support of employees as humans is the building block to cultivating happy employees. How employees are supported during a leave of absence is a great example of this.

Do: Promote buy-in throughout the organization

Employees want more than human-centric benefits, they want the confidence to know that they are encouraged to take advantage of them. For example, at Tilt we use RTO (responsible time off), and we encourage its use by “leaving loudly.” If someone in leadership needs a mental health breather they announce it to the organization.

As Lorena Martinez, a former employee survey implementation consultant at Great Place to Work puts it:

“People look up to their bosses when they encourage their team to consistently take full advantage of benefits and wellness opportunities.”

Benefits need to be easy to access, accessible to all eligible employees, and be encouraged by leadership. Your employees need to trust that when they need one of the benefits provided they’ll get the support they need when they need it. 

Tilt Recap: Employees won’t feel confident they can use company benefits if there isn’t positive reinforcement to do so from leadership.