What Makes Employees Happy At Work?

As long as people remain the center of organizations, attracting, retaining, and motivating those people-keeping employees happy at work-will be one of the most important elements of a leader’s job. Work is central to our lives. For most adults, work occupies the majority of waking hours. And being happy at work can make a big difference in whether those hours are a drain or not. And, by extension, whether those hours are productive or not.

But that job as become more and more difficult over time.

In recent years some of the circumstances around job satisfaction and happiness at work have been outside of leaders’ control-global pandemics and being always on the verge of a recession come to mind. But there are a few adjustments inside of leaders’ control that can dramatically effect happiness. In particular, research from Mark Mortensen and Amy Edmondson suggests four specific components effect the “employee value proposition” and hence their happiness at work.

In this article, we’ll review those four elements of employee happiness and offer suggestions on how to leverage each to make employees happy at work.

Material Offerings

The first element that makes employees happy at work is material offerings. Material offerings include compensation, bonuses, and perks, the…