Why happiness at work matters and how you can still have it

Alex Kjerulf, aka The Chief Happiness Officer, is one of the world’s top experts on happiness at work and author of the bestselling book: Happy Hour is 9 to 5 - How to Love Your Job, Love Your Life and Kick Butt at Work.

During a recent interview with Terrence Seamon of the American Management Association (AMA), he explained how happiness at work is no longer a luxury and is now essential to business success.

Even in the midst of crisis and without any room in the budget, companies can still focus on happiness at work. They must, according to Kjerulf. When you’re going through tough times, it’s critical to have people performing at their best. If people are happy at work and treated well by their employer, they will do anything they can to help the company succeed.

In the absence of a large budget, companies are forced to get creative with employee motivation and many times, it is the simplest idea that has the best results, says Kjerulf.

Find out more about the power of happiness at work, why the happiest companies are the most successful and the importance of saying good morning in this quick, 15 minute podcast.

You can hear the entire podcast here.


Related posts:

Why the happiest companies are so happy

Creativity, innovation and happiness at work

Should employees choose their own training?

Yesterday, Jim Giuliano at HR Morning shared one of his best HR management ideas: let employees find and choose their own training.

The idea became a winning solution to one company’s struggle to find new employee training ideas with limited resources, a common challenge many small companies face.

You can read the longer version at HR Morning, but here’s the basic story:

• During the recruiting process, people are told that the company is dedicated to continual learning and development, using training to reach career goals.
• Supervisors and HR don’t have enough time to come up with new training ideas relevant to the goals of the employee and company.
• The company can’t afford to hire a professional training coordinator.

Solution: Turn employees into their own training coordinators.

Employees find and choose their own training, under two conditions:

1. They must prove that the training correlates with their jobs and careers.
2. The cost of the training program must be justified (increased cost, increased benefit).

The company tried out the program for one year on an experimental basis with only a few employees.

Results were mixed: “Not all employees embraced the idea - some still wanted the supervisor to pick the training. But we found that the ones who did take control of their training often also happened to be our most motivated, top performers.”

Why it’s a great idea:

• It improves employee engagement by giving them the freedom to choose which areas they would like to improve on.
• It saves supervisors and HR time by having employees take over the task of researching new training ideas.

But what do you think?

Are you struggling with finding new ideas for employee training and think a program like this could work at your company? Should employees choose their own training? Could it cause any problems?

Improve elearning retention, keep it short

The next time you're thinking about adding more text to your learning materials, you may want to stop and think again.

While you think you may be adding pages and pages full of valuable learning materials, adding more information can actually hurt learning retention, according to a study on Efficiency in Learning in the Journal of Educational Psychology.

The study compared three lessons on the same weather process. Each lesson used the same illustrations, but varied in the number of words - 50, 100 and 600.

Students scored higher on the lesson with the fewest words.

Though the study may have not been conducted last week (it's actually more than a decade old), its findings are still relevant today, especially when it comes to elearning.

When you're writing for the web or creating new elearning materials, remember that people want clear, concise, simple instruction.

Web readers have a short attention span who like text to be short, scannable and broken up into small bites they can digest quickly. Eye-tracking studies show that online readers skip over large blocks of text and shorter paragraphs perform better.

On the Internet, readers hunt for facts, asses online material quickly and move on if there is nothing worth sticking around for.

Keep your online training programs short and to the point. This may mean having to break a long lesson into a few shorter sessions, but you’ll keep your trainees’ attention and they’ll retain more information.

Take the advice from a recent Copyblogger post: "Nobody wants to speculate how to start a lawnmower. All they want to do is cut the grass."

Training losing ground in the battle of the budgets

Financial hardships caused by the economic recession have led even more organizations to cut spending on employee training, according to two recent studies.

The average amount companies spend on training per employee fell 11% in the past year, according to a recently released research report by Bersin & Associates. Training expenditures per employee declined from $1,202 per trainee in 2007 to $1,075 per trainee in 2008.

Bersin’s data also showed that the U.S. corporate training market shrank by more than $2 billion, from $58.5 billion in 2007 to $56.2 billion in 2008, marking the greatest decline in more than a decade.

This latest report mirrors another study released in November, revealing that more than twice as many corporate and government training professionals expect training budget decreases rather than increases in 2009.

According to the study by training services firm Expertus, almost half (48%) of survey respondents expect smaller training budgets in 2009, up from 41% in 2008.

“When budgets became tight, organizations with a traditional training focus suffered most,” Bersin said in a statement. “Today’s business world demands a combination of formal and informal learning with an emphasis on collaboration, knowledge sharing, social networking, coaching, and mentoring.”

A well-trained employee is one of your company’s best assets and worthy of the financial investment. Resist the urge to take the “easy” way out by cutting development opportunities and find creative ways to stretch your training budget.

For more information on how to (and how not to) handle employee training in a recession, take a look at some of these related posts:

Cutting training, cutting safety: Is our economy causing more workplace injuries

Employee training and the budget battle

Training budgets, just another victim of the recession

‘Recession-proof’ employee training tips

5 tips for employee training on a tight budget

How to cut costs in your personal budget at work

You’ve heard the spiel before - we’re in a recession, your 401(k) is losing money, companies are laying off workers left and right, and we’re all worried about it.

Instead of worrying about everything you have no control over, concern yourself with the parts of your life that you can do something about - starting with how you choose to spend your money.

When you factor in coffee, lunch and all those snacks out of the vending machine, the office has a way of taking more cash out of our wallets than we’d like. Controlling your personal spending habits at work is a great way to start cutting costs in your personal budget.

In a recent New York Times Q & A, author Eilene Zimmerman shared some great ideas for slicing your own budget at the office. Here are a few of the best:

• Leave the plastic at home. Leaving credit cards at home helps you to curb impulsive spending. Determine how much money you can afford to spend at work each week and put that amount of cash in an envelope. If that’s all the money you have to spend, you’ll think twice about your lunch order.


• Brown bag it. Cut down on food costs and improve your health by bringing lunch from home. A survey conducted in October by ConAgra Foods found that workers spend an average of $6.60 a day on lunch. By bringing food from home, even two or three times a week, can help you cut down on food costs.


• Skip the vending machines. For the cost of a few items out of the vending machine you could afford to buy an entire box of snacks from the grocery store. Get a few co-workers together and set up a snack pool. Each person donates snacks like granola bars or pretzels to share with the group and keep your stash of snacks in a central location in the office.


• Brew your own. “If you skip the twice-daily coffee your can save $30 a week. That’s $120 a month and about $1,500 a year.” Pick up a French press (usually less than $20) and brew your own great cup of coffee whenever you want, for a fraction of the cost of a store-bought latte.


• Take a look at your health benefits. Talk with human resources to ensure you’re making the right benefits enrollment decisions. Starting a flexible spending account would allow you to use pretax income for out-of-pocket medical and health expenses. Using pretax income will give you about a 25% savings and reduces your taxable income.

We’d like to add one more to the list - just say no to bottled water. Not only does it help you go green at work, it could help you save a lot of money. Americans spent more money last year on bottled water ($15 billion) than they did on iPods or movie tickets. Buying a reusable water bottle will help you stop wasting money and reduce your carbon footprint.

Saving money at work comes down to making conscious decisions on the little things you buy everyday. Give yourself strict limits, stick to them, and you’ll be saving money in no time.

Employee training videos that won’t put you to sleep

It’s your first day on the job. Your manager has you fill out a few forms, gives you a tour of the building and then takes you to the back room to watch an employee training video.

All of the sudden you’re sleepy, very sleepy and thinking this would be a great time to catch a little power nap, right?

But what if employee training videos were actually enjoyable enough that trainees would want to stay awake while they’re playing ... maybe even retain something?

Think it could never happen?

Well, thanks to YouTube, we have video evidence that entertaining employee training videos once existed. Back in 1989, Wendy’s created a new hire training video that put some fun into the learning process and is even more fun to look back on now.

Here it is (just remember, this is 1989):




Whether employees laughed at the video or thought the rapper in a sparkly green polo shirt was cool, Wendy’s found a way to make flipping burgers not so boring. It was one small gesture that may have had a big influence on the way workers thought of their new employer.

Work a little bit of fun into your training program and your employees will appreciate it. Even if the final product is a little cheesy, you’ll be laughing in 10 years, I promise.

Is our economy causing more workplace injuries?

After three years of decline, the number of workplace deaths in North Carolina rose by 31 percent in 2008 and officials are putting part of the blame on our country’s weakening economy.

Last year there were 59 work-related deaths, up from 45 in 2007, according to preliminary data from the North Carolina Department of Labor reported in the Charlotte Observer.

Labor officials are worried that the slowing economy is causing more companies to cut corners on safety and is creating more dangerous workplaces.

The NC Labor Department spokeswoman Delores Quesenberry said that when tough economic times hit businesses, company training and other safety initiatives are among the first to be cut from the budget.

“That's one of the first messages we want to get to employers: Make sure your employees are trained. It's not worth a life,” said Quesenberry.

A recent workplace survey is validating the NC officials’ worries, and showing that skimping on safety training is a national problem.

A December survey of 300 mechanical, electrical, facilities, utilities and plumbing (MEP) professionals indicates a negligent attitude toward training among MEP employers, according to MEP Jobs.

According to survey respondents:

• 45% said their employer did not have a budget for training
• 15% said their company’s training budget is going down in 2009
• 55% had to fund their last professional certification training and testing costs on their own
• More than 25% either couldn’t remember or hadn’t been trained yet in a work-related safety procedure or process

Workplace safety training is not a luxury - it’s a necessity. With proper training, employees are equipped with the tools to make the right decision in potentially life-threatening situations.

When the economy takes a hit, workplace safety training becomes critical for one main reason: companies hire younger and more inexperienced employees due to the scarcity of skilled workers and to save on payroll. Combining inexperienced workers with a lack of training can lead to disastrous consequences and expensive OSHA fines.

No matter how you work the numbers, the cost-savings you find in cutting back on safety will never compare to the value lost when an employee is injured on the job.

How’s the safety training situation at your workplace? Is the economy forcing your business to cut corners and put employees in danger?

New program pays for job training in Michigan

In December, Michigan legislators passed a bill that will allow community colleges to create training programs for companies adding new jobs or for new businesses coming to the state.

Cost to businesses = $0

Cost to community colleges = $0

So how does it work?

Under the New Jobs Training Program, community colleges sell bonds to develop training programs for new companies moving to Michigan or existing companies creating new positions.

Employers can approach a community college with a number of jobs they need training for. The employer then signs a written contract with the community college to provide training at no cost to the trainees. The tuition for the training is primarily paid back through state income tax revenues created by the new jobs.

From the Lansing State Journal:

"This is not a hit to the state, because these are new jobs," said Michael Hansen, president of the Michigan Community College Association. "The state was never going to realize that income tax anyway. The jobs wouldn't exist except for this program."

Modeled on a successful program in Iowa, the initiative "is a win for the community college, because they develop training capacity," he said, adding that several of the state's community colleges, Lansing Community College among them, have already expressed interest.

"It's a win for the company, because they get their workers trained for free," he said.

The only catch is that the jobs must be new, part of an effort to expand business. Trainees can’t be replacement workers for existing positions.

Michigan’s law was modeled after a similar program Iowa began in 1983 where community colleges use bonds to purchase equipment and facilities, develop contracts with special trainers and private vendors and hire instructors for new training programs.

Since its inception, the Iowa program generated $600 million to finance 2,100 projects that created more than 140,000 jobs for the state.

When signing the legislation, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm pointed out that the state “must do everything we can to help our citizens get the training they need for good-paying jobs in this challenging global economy. These bills are another part of our plan to ensure that we have a strong workforce that can compete and win in the 21st century.”

Hopefully, Michigan will find the same success Iowa did in creating the New Jobs Training Program, but only time will tell.

What are your thoughts on Michigan’s New Jobs Training Program? With our current economic situation, do you think more states should develop similar programs?

A new outlook: How optimism at work pays off

After watching Barack Obama take the oath of office and become the 44th president of the United States, a renewed feeling of optimism has swept over our country.

Despite our economic situation and the problems it has caused in our workplaces, today is a day to put those issues aside and focus on the future.

"Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier." -- Colin Powell

In his book titled, Straight Talk for Success, Bill Bilanich wrote a chapter on “Optimism” that provides useful advice given the economic situation we’re facing, according to Steve Roesler at All Things Workplace.

Bud notes that optimism not only propels us toward our goals but allows people to experience hopefulness. In a crisis, optimists see problems as temporary. They don't blame themselves and they don't feel doomed. He also offers some factoids related to optimism:

• 75% of Americans consider themselves to be optimists.
• 99% of workers prefer a positive job environment. (No surprise there!).
• 90% of people say they are more productive around positive people.

Though we can’t do much to fix the economy, Bilanich suggests there are a few actions you can take to stay optimistic during these times of uncertainty:

• Stop wasting your time on issues that can’t be changed. Instead, focus on what you can do to change the parts of your life that you have control over.
• Understand and tap into your natural strengths.
• When a problem arises, mentally rehearse how you will handle it.
• Concentrate on the positive things in life and work.
• Focus your thoughts on the possibilities of a situation rather than its limitations.

What techniques do you use to fight negativity at work?

How to deliver employee training like a ninja

Want to learn how to “kick-butt” when developing and delivering training programs?

Becoming a training ninja takes time, practice and a lot of patience, but you can start strengthening your skills with a new, free eBook from Chris Ferdinandi at Manager’s Sandbox.

Download Kung-Fu Training: The Art of Developing and Delivering Kick-Butt Training Programs, a practical guide to help you inspire people to do amazing things in your workplace.

Kung-Fu Training will help you reach that training black belt with information on how most trainers go wrong, how to inspire change and tips to perfect your presentation skills.

Quick, practical, informative and free - you can check it out here.

Friday office humor: Leadership thought of the day

I was going to put up a long and detailed post on the importance of leadership during uncertain times today, but then I remembered that it’s Friday. The weekend is a few hours away and nobody wants to think any harder than they have to today.

So, we’ll hold of on the leadership during uncertain times post and instead give you something to smile about. Without any further delay, here’s a great new Dilbert comic strip on the wrong way to deliver a “leadership thought of the day” to your department:



Have a Happy Friday!

Is using video games to recruit deceptive?

Next to the Banana Republic and Victoria’s Secret shops in the Franklin Mills Mall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, you can now find the state-of-the-art Army Experience Center. Complete with a Humvee, a Black Hawk Helicopter and an Apache gunship, the facility is part of a two-year experiment by the Army to boost recruiting numbers.

The Army spent $12 million constructing the facility and packing it full of computers and video games for an interactive, virtual reality experience designed to recruit new soldiers.

After four months, 33 full-time soldiers and five reservists have signed up - a figure that matches the performance of the five recruiting centers it replaced.

The army says the Experience Center is more than just a recruiting hub, and also serves to “dispel misperceptions about Army life,” according to a recent Reuters article.

"We want them to know that being in the Army isn't just about carrying weapons and busting down doors," said Jennings, who wears slacks and a polo shirt rather than a uniform. About 80 percent of soldiers are not involved in direct combat roles, he said.

But some people, including former soldiers, think the use of video games in recruiting for the Army is glamorizing war and can mislead potential recruits. Jesse Hamilton, a former Army staff sergeant who served in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, called the video games “very deceiving and very far from realistic.”

"You can't simulate the loss when you see people getting killed," said Hamilton, who left the Army after his Iraq tour and is now a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

"It's not very likely you are going to get into a firefight," he said. "The only way to simulate the heat is holding a blow dryer to your face."

We want to know what you think - Could the Army Experience Center be considered a deceptive recruitment technique or is it just a creative way to meet recruiting goals?

Employee training and the 2009 budget battle

As we enter 2009 and our country falls deeper into a recession, a recent survey has revealed how many companies plan to cut costs this year and it all starts with HR.

Most companies plan to cut costs in 2009 through a combination of layoffs, hiring freezes, reduced employee training and reevaluating various other HR programs, according to a 2008 fourth quarter study by global consulting firm Watson Wyatt.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again - employee training is one of your most valuable business assets, especially during periods of economic hardship.

Though our budgets are stretched almost to the breaking point, now is not the time to eliminate employee training opportunities.

Why training is more important during a recession:

• Well trained employees work more efficiently, with less errors and delays.
• Training improves employee engagement, loyalty and development.
• Employees taking on more work get up to speed faster with the right training.
• Training gives a boost to employee morale and confidence.

Resist the urge to take the “easy” way out by cutting development opportunities and find creative ways to stretch your training dollars to their full potential.

In a recent article at TrainingZone, Nigel Paine, former head of training and development at the BBC, outlined ways organizations can rise to the challenge during these tough times and stay focused on L&D.

Here are a few tips from his list of top learning and development strategies for 2009:

• Don’t panic. Though many of your programs may be on notice, use this time to adjust your strategy, plan and take a close look at what is or is not working. Put your focus on the skills and attitudes will get you through the next year.


• Innovate. Restructuring isn’t always a bad thing. The old way of doing things may not be working anymore. Use this opportunity to discover new employee training ideas to take you into the future.


• Get online. E-learning has been growing by leaps and bounds over the past few years. Online resources can help you cut down on training costs and deliver learning faster, with less time away from work.


• Listen. What can you do to support those in your organization who are having a tough time? What type of training opportunities would help them succeed? Listening to your staff is the best way to determine their needs.


• Find free or cheap training tools. Do your research and find low cost equivalents for the product or service you’re planning to buy. Selling new training ideas to the boss is much easier when your idea is free.

And remember Paine’s advice: “This is the time for thought not panic … be optimistic but realistic!”

Achieve your 2009 goals: Start with the right list

January is an optimistic month, full of goals and New Year’s resolutions set in hopes of making the next 12 months better than the last. Unfortunately, that optimism may quickly turn to frustration when it’s time to start attacking those goals.

Making a New Year’s resolution is simple. It’s following through with your resolutions that is usually the difficult part. By the time March rolls around, much of what we planned for in January has fallen by the wayside and we’re left with disappointment.

Whether it involves improving your safety training program or creating more learning and development opportunities in your organization, sticking to your New Year’s goals doesn't have to seem impossible.

Increase the probability that you’ll actually follow through with the resolutions you set in January by focusing on how you determine your goal list.

In a recent article from our Workplace Training & Development Learning Library, the author suggests using a new approach to goal setting that may work out better for you this year.

Follow these five steps to goal-reaching success:

1. Outline your priorities. What is most important in your life right now? List your top five priorities. You’re not thinking about goals yet, just the things that matter most to you.


2. Identify one goal. Determine one major goal for each priority you outlined in the first step. Make sure your goal is achievable, measurable, directly related to your priority and within your control.


3. List the steps. Look at each goal and list the steps you need to take in order to achieve it.


4. Set deadlines. Once you’ve identified the steps, create deadlines for each step. Be realistic with your timelines and consider other responsibilities as you assign each date.


5. Keep goals close by. Put all of your goals, steps and due dates into your daily planner and carry it with you every day. Check it frequently to make sure you’re staying on task.

Dream On: Improving employee morale one wish at a time

Last week, the folks over at Incentive Intelligence featured a new and surprising incentive and recognition program one company is using to improve employee morale and engagement.

Appletree Answering Service, a Delaware-based telephone services and call center firm, has found great success with a new employee incentive program called “Dream On.”

The program is simple - employees fill out a “wish” request and management fulfills wishes.

From the Delaware Online article:

"We've always had a philosophy based on taking care of our employees," said Appletree founder and CEO John Ratliff. "Dream On grew out of a concierge idea, where we would use our resources to help employees meet their personal needs."

The program is based on the Make-a-Wish idea of granting an employee's special wish for themselves or others.

"There are no criteria for structuring a wish," Ratliff said. "It doesn't have to involve a serious personal or health issue. There are no categories or limitations on what the wish can be, nor is there a set budget."

Employees can even submit wishes for other co-workers. In one instance, an Appletree employee received football tickets after a co-worker overheard how much she wanted to take her husband, currently battling cancer, to a game. The employee’s wish was granted before she ever asked for it.

With the Dream On employee incentive program, the company successfully tackled a 90-percent turnover rate among frontline employees. After the first full month of putting the program into action, the company has seen dramatically lower employee turnover rates and the savings in new-hire training costs has completely covered the cost of wishes granted.

Why the program works: By mixing the element of surprise and involving employees in the process, Appletree has found a way to improve morale and employee engagement across the board. Who doesn’t love receiving a gift from out of the blue?

How it could go wrong: One potential downside to the program may be the lack of “wish” limitations. Management fulfills wishes at random and the value of each wish varies. Without any set limitations, spending may increase to a point where cost outweighs the benefit of the program.

We want to know - Why do you like or not like this employee incentive program? What added benefits and potential problems do you see cropping up?

Are your employees trained on the new Form I-9?

U.S. employers have less than a month to ensure their organizations are in compliance with the new changes to the Employment Eligibility Verification process (Form I-9).

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published the new I-9 changes to streamline the work eligibility process on December 17, 2008. The new I-9 form reflects several changes including new employment verification guidelines and a redefined list of acceptable proof of identification documents.

Beginning February 2, 2009, all employers are required to use the revised Form I-9 for verification of new employees and re-verification of existing employees. It is each employer’s responsibility to ensure all employees involved in the hiring process are trained on the latest changes to the new document.

The new Form I-9 includes several modifications that you should cover in your Form I-9 compliance training, including:

• Using expired documents as proof of identification or work authorization is no longer acceptable.
• Three documents were eliminated from List A of the List of Acceptable Documents: Temporary Resident Card, and older versions of the Employment Authorization Card/Document.
• Foreign passports with machine-readable visas for certain citizens of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) were added to List A.
• The new U.S. Passport card was added to the list of acceptable employment eligibility verification documents.
• Revisions to the employee attestation section of the Form I-9.

Employers who fail to use the revised I-9 form by February 2, 2009 may be subject to violation fines. Keep your company in compliance by ordering the updated Form I-9 today.

Omelets in a bag as a lesson in training

A year or so ago, TV cooking star Rachael Ray had a guest who demonstrated a no-fuss way to make the perfect omelet, using a Ziploc™ bag and a pot of boiling water. Her under 15 minute omelet seemed like the perfect solution for time-pressed Americans who wanted a real breakfast without a lot of clean up.

Her training was flawless.

She described the technique, demonstrated the steps, conveyed the benefits and allowed participants (Rachael Ray and the audience) to experience the results. Websites were abuzz with this new and simple way to cook an omelet. People added variations..cheeses, meats, veggies. The training had taken hold.

There was only one problem. It was toxic.

According to scientists at the University of Illinois, boiling zippered plastic bags had the potential to release cancer-causing chemicals into the food, making this simple time-saving tip into a toxic cocktail. The Ziploc™ company confirmed that their products were not designed to be safely boiled, and that these omelets could be unhealthy.

And so the recipes and the recommendations went away.

Until yesterday. An article in the The State Journal-Register out of Springfield, Illnois (ironically, the state where the dangers were first mentioned) once again touted the simplicity of these foolproof omelets in a bag. And the frenzy started all over again. The story quickly rose in the Google Trends lists.

The training completed two years ago was still having an effect, even though it had been proven to be dangerous and incorrect!

So why am I mentioning it here?

As trainers and training designers, we have the potential to do great things for employees, which in turn can do great things for customers -- and ultimately, for the bottom line. But we also have the potential to do great harm. If we design, present or endorse incorrect or misleading training, we could be leading the participants straight into a toxic situation.

This is especially critical when we're dealing with safety training. Incorrect information about a chemical's risk or the way to operate one aspect of forklift safety could have tragic consequences. And yet when budgets are tight, we often see an "Any training is better than none" approach. Like the Rachael Ray guest, we could be leading people down a dangerous path simply because it's quick and easy.