Team Building to Create Happy Employees

It’s not often that employees of a multi-billion dollar company will broadcast their workplace satisfaction by creating a YouTube video on happiness. It happened last year when flight staff from Virgin America created a video to Pharrell Williams’ song, “Happy.”

The Foundation of Team Happiness

Richard Branson is doing something right to have his staff pay homage to his style of leadership with a crazy dance to the happiness song on a Virgin plane.

What is he doing?

Branson puts his employees first. Virgin invests in employees with regular team building events to increase engagement and strengthen relationships among employees, which is critical in developing a highly competitive organization.

“Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your clients,” said Branson, who credits his employees as being the heart of his billion-dollar empire.

Like Branson, some of the best leaders of the most successful organizations are known for their unconventional way of running a business – looking beyond strategic goals and quarterly results. Employees come first.

Successful organizations profit from team building exercises that fuel stellar employee performance, resulting in exemplary customer service.

The Foundation of Team Happiness

Building a brand on the foundation of happiness creates passionate and engaged employees that drive the success of an organization.

The foundation of happiness is a philosophy that creates an employee-centric management strategy that fosters innovation, passion and engagement from workers, which has a markedly positive effect on customer relations.

And companies that have a reputation for practicing the happiness factor are the ones that experience phenomenal growth.

According to Being Happy at Work Matters, published by the Harvard Business Journal, happiness counts for success. “Happy people are better workers. Those who are engaged with their jobs and colleagues work harder — and smarter.” Conversely, those disengaged are “sabotaging projects, backstabbing colleagues, and generally wreaking havoc in their workplaces.”

Shawn Achor, Best Selling author, psychologist and Harvard University Researcher, says a productive brain is sparked by positivity in the present. In fact, a comprehensive analysis of 225 studies shows that happy employees are 31% more productive and three times more creative.

Achor, known for The Happy Secret at Work – one of the top most 20 viewed Ted Talks, says when your brain is at positive, it “…performs significantly better than at negative, neutral or stressed. Your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, your energy levels rise. In fact, we’ve found that every single business outcome improves.”

You might find that high-performing individuals in leading organizations will tell you that success does not drive happiness but that success is driven by happiness.

Inspiring Engagement with Cohesiveness

Creating a cohesive team across each level in a company anchors trust, opens communication and inspires innovation. More importantly, team building allows employees to experience and overcome challenges outside the work environment, where everyone from senior executives to direct reports, are on an equal playing field.

And it creates a happy work environment.

Just ask the staff at Virgin Atlantic.


Create a culture of happiness within your team! With more than 20 programs and activities to choose from let Total Team Building help you engage your staff…Contact Us Today!


 

SOURCES:

Harvard Business Journal, Being Happy at Work Matters: https://hbr.org/2014/11/being-happy-at-work-matters

Virgin Atlantic, Happy song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJnJ0kanTI4

Wharton University of Pennsylvania, Executive Education, Improve Productivity and Success with Five Positivity Habits: http://executiveeducation.wharton.upenn.edu/thought-leadership/wharton-at-work/2014/03/positivity-habits

Shawn Achor, The Happy Secret at Work, Ted talks: https://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work/transcript?language=en