5 Ways to Increase Happiness in Your Employees

5 Ways to Increase Happiness in Your Employees Happiness at work is essential to today’s workforce. What’s especially great is the fact that happiness in your employees creates benefits for the company they work for, too. Happier employees complete their work faster and are more creative. They’re also less likely to quit their jobs, even if they’re offered more money somewhere else, according to this analysis from Gallup. Having happy employees doesn’t happen by accident; it doesn’t simply mean hiring people with a positive attitude. Fostering and maintaining happiness in your employees is a deliberate effort. Here are 5 ways you can create a work environment that increases employee happiness and delivers the benefits of a happy crew to you. 1. Set the Example of Happiness Start your day on a positive note. Think about something you’re looking forward to doing or experiencing at work today. Smile and greet your team members, and be as genuine as possible. Smiles, like happiness, are contagious, foster open communication, and help to lift the mood of the people you encounter. 2. Show Appreciation Make a point to recognize a job well done on a regular basis. The simple act of saying thank you and taking note of a team member doing well not only boosts their confidence and self-esteem but also sends a message to the other team members that you’re engaged and you notice their work. 3. Be Flexible Whenever Possible Offering employees choices about where and how they accomplish their work gives them a sense of control. Allowing them to choose their hours and break times also promotes a sustainable work-life balance and means they will be more focused and productive during the time they’ve set aside to work. 4. Create Comfortable Collaboration Spaces Having a comfortable in-person or virtual break room is a significant benefit for your team. It creates a space where employees can disconnect from work for a few moments and mentally reset, and it provides a space where team members can collaborate, solve problems, and build relationships—all activities that benefit the health and happiness of the whole team. 5. Communicate with Transparency What’s your vision for your team? How do your team members contribute to that vision? What are they doing that’s making a difference in the world? Talk to your employees about your organization’s bigger picture and how their work contributes to the overall goals. Giving them this insight helps them feel significant and invested in the outcome of their work. Expert Training on Happiness at Work It is not difficult to be happy at work and foster happiness in your employees. You simply need to know the guiding principles. Our Happiness and Performance workshop teaches the variables most often correlated with happiness, including the role of work itself. Deepen your understanding of what promotes job satisfaction and dissatisfaction and what to do for team members who want to be happy or happier. Contact us today to set up a training session on Happiness and Performance [...]

By |2023-06-30T17:41:21-03:00June 30th, 2023|Happiness Tips, Leadership Tips|Comments Off on 5 Ways to Increase Happiness in Your Employees

Emotional Intelligence: 4 Ways to Build Your Self-Awareness Skills

Emotional Intelligence: 4 Ways to Build Your Self-Awareness Skills The core of great leadership is understanding people. It’s understanding how to motivate them, how to find their strengths and harness them for your team. One powerful tool leaders use in effectively motivating and communicating with their teams is emotional intelligence. This is the skillset that helps leaders read the room and change their approach based on the kind of feedback or direction their team members need in the moment. One of the key pillars of emotional intelligence is self-reflection and self-awareness. Counter to what you may be thinking, the way to get better at self-reflection isn’t through introspection. When we rely only on our perceptions of ourselves, we often get it wrong. Why? We have a tendency to be our own blind spots. We already know and understand our own perspective, but what’s missing, without the input from others, is how what we say and the way we say it makes them feel. Though we may have meant something as a straightforward statement of fact, it may have come across like a cutting insult depending on our timing and facial expression as we delivered this information. When we ask for feedback from others, it helps us to fill in those blind spots. It gives us new information to consider, and it helps us understand the gap between what we tried to express and the message others received. Here are 4 ways to build better self-awareness and boost your emotional intelligence. 1. Choose Feedback Givers Who Can Afford to Be Honest Flattery isn’t honest feedback, and it certainly won’t be helpful in allowing you to build accurate perceptions of yourself. So, who do you ask for feedback? Ideally, you ask people who can afford to be honest. Choose people who don’t need something from you rather than people who are depending on your feedback on an employee review or a critical piece of a collaborative project. If you’re asking people to evaluate a specific situation, it’s best to ask someone who was actually in the room when it happened. That way their reaction isn’t impacted by your version of events, which will always be limited to your perspective. Ask multiple people. Your team members and the other people around you are not a monolith. One person might find a comment you made to be deeply offensive while someone else maybe didn’t even catch that you said it. Asking multiple people gives you the opportunity to spot a trend. If multiple people were uncomfortable with something you said or did, it’s likely a situation you need to take a look at again so you can accept responsibility for anything that was out of line. 2. Ask Open-ended Questions We’ve all had those conversations where someone asked a question in such a way that made it clear there was only one right answer. If you ask leading questions, you’re more likely to get biased answers. (You don’t think I was being too harsh [...]

By |2023-05-15T11:58:24-03:00May 15th, 2023|Happiness Tips, Leadership Tips|Comments Off on Emotional Intelligence: 4 Ways to Build Your Self-Awareness Skills

4 Smart Ways to Get a Fresh Start

4 Smart Ways to Get a Fresh Start January is a perfect time to get a fresh start. You don’t have to set resolutions in order to give yourself a fresh start. All you need is a few minutes for a brief self-assessment and an open, curious mind. 1. Find Your Why Before setting any goals for this year, consider the reasons behind them. Your why may have to do with your professional life, or it may be more personal. You may enjoy the people you’re working with and find it rewarding to create an environment where you succeed together or you may just want to focus on you and improving your quality of life. Understanding why a goal matters to you personally helps keep you focused. It helps you keep what’s truly important to you front and center. Have you read “Find Your Why” by Simon Sinek? Having trouble putting your why into words? Consider journaling or talking with a friend, coach or mentor to get better clarity. 2. Set Clear Goals Once you understand your why, you can narrow in on what specific goals best support it. What small changes would mean the most in your life in the context of your why? Remember, concrete, specific goals are easier to complete because we can break them down into bite-sized, achievable steps. Having trouble breaking down your goal into intermediary steps? Not sure how to achieve it? We can help! Our coaching solutions offer you the mentorship you need, targeted specifically to your goals. 3. Share Your Goals When you announce and share your intentions you commit more…Talk to your boss or a team member about your goals for the year. You may want to set specific times to get together and discuss your progress. Perhaps this person can be another set of eyes and ears looking out for opportunities in the direction of your goal. Try to avoid creating a one-sided relationship that’s focused only on your needs and success. Instead, look for a symbiotic relationship, where you each have something to offer one another in terms of support and experience. 4. Invest in Yourself Make developing yourself a part of your goal. This might mean earning a new certification or degree, but it doesn’t have to. One of the easiest and most impactful ways to expand your knowledge is through reading. I just downloaded a new APP called Headway that gives me the opportunity to listen to an audiobook summary a day while talking my walk. Identify key areas you’d like to improve in your work processes and relationships. Find a book, workshop or conference that will give you the opportunity to acquire those skills. Another great development action-item can include attending workshops and seminars. For example, if you struggle with being more assertive, our workshop on The Secrets of Conflict Management will help you build that skill. Get a Fresh Start with These 24 Workshops KCC offers 24 different workshops and conferences to expand your expertise [...]

By |2023-03-24T12:01:53-03:00January 19th, 2023|Happiness Tips, Leadership Tips|Comments Off on 4 Smart Ways to Get a Fresh Start

5 Simple Tips for a Joyful Holiday Season

5 Simple Tips for a Joyful Holiday Season It’s the most wonderful time of the year! And sometimes the busiest time of the year, too. With all the extra celebrations, added errands, and weather changes, the holidays can lead to extra stress, but they don’t have to. Here are 5 simple tips for a joyful holiday season. 1. Limit Your To Do List No one can do it all, and trying to is a recipe for stress and conflict in your life. As you sit down to make your to do list limit the number of items you can add. The holidays bring extra celebrations and events, extra shopping and cooking, and all those tasks take time above and beyond our normal daily commitments. Each morning, think about what your top priorities are for the day and allow yourself to add only one or two things to your Holiday To Do list each day. A new idea is to add to your “TO BE” list, instead of your “TO DO” list: be grateful, be relaxed, be joyful, be yourself, etc. 2. Put Joy on the Calendar What are the things you most look forward to during a holiday season? Is it a certain visit with an friend? A gift exchange over brunch? Watching festive movies and drinking hot cocoa with the ones you love? Whatever your traditions, be sure to put the moments you love on your calendar before it fills with other holiday hustle and bustle. This gives you something to look forward to, too. On the flip side, try to politely decline certain events or activities if it doesn’t feel right…less can be more! 3. Check in with Your Body Make a point throughout the holidays to check in with your body. Are you thirsty? In need of a healthy snack or meal to recharge your energy? Are you in need of rest? Take the time to meet your body’s needs as soon as you possibly can. When we don’t meet our body’s needs, it often finds a louder way to make those needs known. Missing a meal can make us snappy or leave us with a headache. The longer we ignore our needs, the longer it can take to recover. Make a point to check in with your body regularly so you stay feeling great. 4. Give There is no shortage of charitable opportunities at this time of year, and there’s nothing like the joy that giving to others brings to our lives. This holiday season, start a tradition of giving with your family, friends, or coworkers. You can let each person choose a charity that’s meaningful to them and take up a group collection. Or you might decide to commit to a service project, such as volunteering. Sometimes, it just can being nice on purpose….hold the door, buy someone a coffee, smile… 5. Celebrate the Relationships that Matter In our last post, 5 Gratitude Practices, one practice we mentioned is to write a note to someone [...]

By |2023-03-24T12:02:16-03:00December 12th, 2022|Happiness Tips|Comments Off on 5 Simple Tips for a Joyful Holiday Season

5 Easy Ways to Start a Daily Gratitude Practice 

5 Easy Ways to Start a Daily Gratitude Practice In the push from Halloween to Christmas, sometimes we lose sight of one of the most important traditions in holiday celebration: pausing to be thankful. In her research on joy, Daring Greatly author Brené Brown noticed a connection she didn’t expect. People who were living joyful lives also followed a daily gratitude practice. What does that mean? Practicing gratitude goes further than having an “attitude of gratitude”, though that’s a great place to begin. A gratitude practice means taking action or spending time purposefully reflecting on experiences, relationships, and things we are grateful for. This year, as the holidays approach, make a point to pause and reflect on the moments you’re grateful for. Maybe for you, it’s that coffee date with a friend, or watching your favorite holiday movie. How can you reduce stress and celebrate gratitude along with your holiday traditions this year? Here are 5 easy ways to add a gratitude practice to your life. 1. Keep a Gratitude Journal Start a journal and commit to writing in it every day. Set a time to do this, perhaps just before bed or in the morning when you first wake up. List three things you’re thankful for. If you prefer the tech approach, there are many apps like 3 Good Things or 5 Minute Journal to log in the things that you feel thankful for. Once you get into the habit, you may find days where it’s hard to limit yourself to just three! 2. Create a Gratitude Jar Place a large vase or jar in a central area in your home alongside scraps of paper and a pen. Write down something you’re grateful for every day on a slip of paper and place it in the jar. Consider setting a time of day when you add something to the jar. Also set a time of the month or season when you sit down and read the notes in the jar. Perhaps every Sunday evening, so that you go into a new workweek with a boost of gratitude. You can do this alone or with your family and perhaps read your “best moments” together during the year end holidays! 3. Take a Savoring Walk Each day, take a “savoring walk”. Spend about twenty minutes walking outside. Let your mind slow down and notice the shapes of the trees, the sound of the wind, and the feel of the sun on your face. Pause to appreciate these things and acknowledge your gratitude for them. 4. Appreciate by Abstaining There are many ways in which we live comfortable lives. We have food to eat, electricity, and internet access. We have access to books and media through stores and libraries. One way to practice gratitude is to choose to abstain from a pleasurable experience for a period of time. You may try giving up sweets, your favorite store-bought latte, or try a social media detox for a period of time, such as a [...]

By |2023-03-24T12:02:26-03:00November 22nd, 2022|Happiness Tips|Comments Off on 5 Easy Ways to Start a Daily Gratitude Practice 

3 Tips to Avoid Holiday Stress so You Can Celebrate What Matters

3 Tips to Avoid Holiday Stress so You Can Celebrate What Matters Sometimes the excitement of having time off, being with friends and family, sharing our favorite foods and drinks and creating special memories can get lost to the holiday stress of preparing for each event. What can we do to minimize stress and maximize happiness this holiday season? Here are 3 tips to boost your joy and be more “zen” this holiday. 1. Give Yourself Permission to Update Your Plans. If you find yourself dreading a particular event or aspect of the holidays, take the time to pause and examine why. Are you dreading a particular event because it’s located in a difficult place to get to? Are you feeling overwhelmed by the number of things crowding your calendar and really wishing you could take a break from the hustle and bustle? Give yourself a moment to understand what’s causing the holiday stress. Once you understand what it is, ask yourself some questions: What happens if you skip this event? Is it essential for you to attend? Could you make an appearance for an hour and then excuse yourself gracefully? If it’s a small event that you’ve organized, is it something you can reschedule to after the holiday rush is over, when you can enjoy it more? 2. Put Your Favorite Holiday Traditions on Your Calendar. Take a few minutes to think about your favorite holiday moments. Is there a specific activity that’s your favorite? Do you love putting on Christmas music and decorating a tree? Is there a holiday treat or meal that’s your favorite? A holiday movie or show you’ve been looking forward to? List your top two or three favorite holiday traditions and put them on your calendar now. You might consider timing them so that you have something special to look forward to the day after something you’re not as excited about doing, or as a space-holder in the middle of a week that’s sure to be super busy. Putting the things that are special to you on the calendar makes sure you don’t reach the end of the holiday season feeling like you’ve missed out on the things that matter to you. 3. Find Simple Ways to Give. Giving at the holidays helps us capture joy by spreading it. It also helps us feel grateful for the things we have. Sometimes that joy and gratitude are exactly what we needed to bring us out of our holiday stress and pull us back into a place where we can enjoy and celebrate this special time of the year. The holidays are saturated with opportunities to give, from donation buckets outside department stores to toy drives to opportunities to provide a holiday meal for a family in need. You might find out that someone in your community or family needs help with a something specific. Maybe you simply buy coffee for the person behind you in line at the coffee shop. Happy Holidays from KCC! Give [...]

By |2021-12-06T13:15:17-03:00December 6th, 2021|Happiness Tips|Comments Off on 3 Tips to Avoid Holiday Stress so You Can Celebrate What Matters

4 Amazing Benefits of Play

4 Amazing Benefits of Play Summertime is here! Are you ready for a break? The wonderful truth is that taking a break and making time for play and fun actually creates lots of benefits in other areas of your life. Now that the weather is lovely and warm again, it’s the perfect time of year to get outside and get our bodies busy making vitamin D, reconnecting with friends and family, and even getting some much-needed activity. We all recognize the importance of play in the growth and development and happiness of children, but what we may not realize is the critical role that it plays in our adult lives. Spending time at play offers lots of benefits. Here are the top 4 amazing benefits of play that will help to increase your happiness. 1. Boosts Creativity and Problem-solving Skills Sometimes all our brains need is an opportunity to think outside the box to get our creative juices flowing. Playing a game with friends or taking a pottery class can be just the thing to jumpstart the brain into thinking more creatively in other areas of our lives. It also boosts problem-solving skills. For example, playing a game where you have to make strategic decisions is like a workout for that part of your brain. Some games depend on your ability to recognize patterns or predict likely outcomes. These skills can be extremely helpful in other areas of your life, and they can be strengthened by actually sitting down and having fun! 2. Improves Communication Skills Another amazing benefit of play is that playing with others also improves communication skills. It gives unique opportunities to solve problems together or work cooperatively to reach goals. Enhancing your ability to communicate can be helpful in every relationship in your life. Playing games together doesn’t have to be a competitive venture, either. There are lots of cooperative or team-based games that focus on a several players working together to defeat another team of players or to defeat the game. You might play a game in which you’re on a deserted island and have to decide which objects will help you survive or simply choose a “get to know you better” activity like the KCC team organized last week. There are lots of options. 3. Reduces Stress Spending time at play can allow other parts of our brains to rest while we’re engrossed in a specific fun activity. Activities like fishing, surfing, cooking, planning a trip or just reading a good book might keep you focused on the activity itself for hours at a time. It gives our minds a break from worries or obsessive thoughts. Often it gives us an opportunity to find sometime we’re successful at and spend time doing it. Play activities also give us new, positive experiences to talk about with others, too. 4. Increases Energy Level Obviously physical activities like playing sports can increase our physical endurance and boost energy in that way. One of the most amazing benefits [...]

By |2021-07-20T12:03:51-03:00July 20th, 2021|Happiness Tips|Comments Off on 4 Amazing Benefits of Play

5 Ways a Daily Mindfulness Practice Will Increase Your Happiness

5 Ways a Daily Mindfulness Practice Will Increase Your Happiness One of the most effective ways to increase your happiness and reduce your stress level is to engage in a daily mindfulness or meditative practice. You don’t have to spend hours a day in order to achieve results, but you do need to do a little research and gather some helpful tools, like a quiet space, perhaps an app or video to guide you through your practice as you learn. The goal is pretty simple. Mindfulness is a type of meditation that helps you to focus on what you feel or think and accept it without judging. You can do this in really short sessions—as little as two minutes to begin. There are a number of great free apps that offer guides to mindfulness practice. My favorite is CALM. Before you know it, your daily practice will begin to bring results. Here are 5 ways a daily mindfulness practice will increase your happiness: 1. Reduce Stress Level Regular mindfulness or meditation practice lowers the levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, in the brain. A regular practice—and this can take just a few minutes each day!—can actually physically change the activity in your brain and alter your hormone levels so you feel less stress and anxiety. 2. Reduce Depression It may seem counterintuitive to think that spending more time in your head would help reduce depressive thoughts and feelings, but the science doesn’t lie. A study at Johns Hopkins found that the effects of meditation were moderate, about the same as for antidepressants. 3. Reduce Job Burnout Here’s something exciting to note: the research on mindfulness as a way to reduce workplace stress and burnout is so compelling that some companies are beginning to offer mindfulness training to their employees, such as nursing staff, who routinely experience high stress situations. 4. Increase Attentiveness Spending a few minutes quieting your body and focusing your thoughts not only has an impact in the hormone levels in your brain, but also helps increase your ability to focus. A mindfulness or meditation practice is a great way to help teach your brain not to rush from thought to thought, but to be able to pause and hold one thought at a time. 5. Grow a Happier Brain In my book, 21 Days to Happiness, I talk about some exciting studies that show how meditation and mindfulness practices can actually help you grow a happier brain. This is really exciting research, and it means that happiness really is something we can choose to pursue. Just like targeting a particular part of your body in a strength-training workout, you can target the happiness centers in your brain with a meditation or mindfulness practice of your own. Are you ready to give it a try? Ingrid Kelada Owner of KCC Positive Business Psychology & Happiness Expert Try all 21 Days to Happiness in My Book There’s never been a better time to pursue happiness with my book, 21 [...]

By |2021-02-15T22:10:01-03:00February 16th, 2021|Happiness Tips|Comments Off on 5 Ways a Daily Mindfulness Practice Will Increase Your Happiness

5 Ways to Celebrate the Holidays with Social Distancing

5 Ways to Happily Celebrate the Holidays in a Socially Distanced Season With the challenges and losses we’ve faced this year, gearing up for happy holidays may feel more overwhelming than usual. Some of our traditions may be altered or impossible this year. It’s easy to get focused on the things that are missing, to notice the empty spots on the calendar where a holiday party might once have been. It’s okay to grieve for those things. What we don’t want to do, though, is let the losses swallow up our attention and steal the possibilities of other happy holiday celebrations. Instead, take some time to reimagine your holidays. Are there things you can update or reinvent that allow you to celebrate in a socially distanced way? Here are 5 ideas to jumpstart your imagination and help you reframe your traditions and help you keep the happy in your holidays. 1. Send Videos to Friends and Family Use an app like Marco Polo or another app that lets you record a video message and send it to a loved one. Then record yourself or your family. Make it as serious or as funny as you want. A quick Internet search will give you lots more ideas. 2. Have a Holiday Movie Marathon Fix your favorite snacks and warm drinks and curl up on the couch with your household to watch holiday movies together. My favorites are Elf and Love Actually. What are yours? Some movie apps have a feature where you can set up a “watch party” and invite other households, so you can watch the movie together, even if you’re not in front of the same TV. 3. Make or Send a Gift Basket or Stocking Many families will choose to forego or postpone an in-person gift exchange this year, but you can still send something special to the ones you love. Personalizing the gifts with notes on why you chose each item or what made you think of the receiver will help bring you closer together. 4. Choose a Special Holiday Dish to Prepare Lots of holiday traditions center around food and sharing big meals together. It may be impossible to recreate those on your own, but choose one dish—maybe a favorite dessert or treat or Aunt Lucy’s famous sweet potatoes, whatever makes the holiday special to you—and ask your family member for the recipe for that dish. Serve it with whatever you want, even order the rest of the meal prepared if you prefer. Share some pictures of your baking experience with your loved ones. 5. Volunteer and make someone else happy In my book, I mention that one of the most effective way to increase our happiness is through acts of kindness. There are so many ways you and your family can pay it forward. Some people may be alone this year, why not make cards or cookies to let them know that they are special? Make These Holiday Happiness Boosters Your Own Try the ideas [...]

By |2020-12-16T12:01:37-03:00December 16th, 2020|Happiness Tips|Comments Off on 5 Ways to Celebrate the Holidays with Social Distancing

5 Tips for Happy Family Relationships

Creating a Happy Family is an Investment Family relationships can be some of the most challenging and most rewarding relationships in our lives. When relationships at home are going well, we feel much happier and better equipped to endure stressful situations in other parts of our lives. What better way to increase our overall happiness than to invest in happiness in our family relationships? Here are 5 tips for creating and increasing happy family relationships that you can start doing right now. Each of these things takes only a minute or two to do. Try them all. See how they improve your family’s overall happiness. 1. Create Opportunities to Express Gratitude Set up a bowl or jar with some scraps of paper beside it. Each day, perhaps just before dinner, ask family members to write down something they are thankful for. Periodically—such as when the bowl gets full, as part of your New Year’s celebration, etc.—read the thankfulness notes together as a family. This creates opportunities for you to hear what’s meaningful in your family members’ lives. It also means you get to relive those positive moments together. 2. Give Positive Feedback Often Everyone loves feeling appreciated and knowing they did a good job or that something they did was special to you. Make a point to compliment the people in your family when they do something helpful or good. Relationship Tip: If you’re noticing a lot more conflict than usual in your home, try this. Suspend all criticism for two weeks. Don’t say anything critical, and instead focus on pointing out the good things your family members are doing. Be specific and genuine. See what happens after two weeks. 3. Display Pictures from Family Events Around the House Frame that picture of the fish you caught while you were on the lake with your son. Hang the one of you with your daughters at the zoo on the refrigerator. Print the picture of you and your partner at the top of a hike and put it on your dresser. Use a digital frame to scroll through multiple experiences. You can even add new pictures over WiFi with some types of digital frames. Posting these pictures where you can see them in your home means that as you go about your normal routines, you see images that remind you of those positive moments with your family, and you feel happier. 4. Create Electronics-Free Zones This might mean no phones, TV or other devices at the dinner table, or no phones or devices for the first ten minutes in the car. Use the time to talk to each other. Ask open-ended questions. Listen without always expecting to have a chance to respond. 5. Eat Together Regularly For some families, gathering around the dinner table every night is impossible with everyone’s varied schedules, and that’s okay! But it doesn’t have to mean that you never have the opportunity to gather over a meal together. Try crafting at least one regular meal time [...]

By |2020-05-07T11:26:05-03:00March 25th, 2020|Happiness Tips|Comments Off on 5 Tips for Happy Family Relationships

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