What Brings You Joy in Your Workplace?

What brings you great joy in the workplace? Employees and managers experience varying degrees of happiness and joy when their experience of their workplace is congruent with how they enjoy spending their days. For every employee, the experience of joy is different because it depends on individual wants and needs.

Each person knows what brings them joy in the workplace. Perhaps some of you share meaning with these examples about joyful events and circumstances in your workplace? In sharing these examples of actions, growth, development, and success, hopefully, you will find many that also spark your joy.

What Motivates the Motivators?

Whether you work in a management role or you are an individual contributor, you will have moments when you experience joy. No? You need to examine the job you have and your workplace—perhaps it's time for a job search. Every person deserves minutes at work that spark joy.

These reminders will make you smile.

• People demonstrate that they are growing and developing in their decision making and performance competence through coaching, classes, and on the job experience.
• Managers and senior leaders trust their employees to provide confident recommendations for improvement for their company, department, or workplace.
• You hear another person's peal of laughter; you know you have staff members who feel joy at work, too, You see coworkers smiling at each other and talking enthusiastically in the hallways.
• You watch your staff greet every stranger with pleasure; temps, interns, and guests say that they feel welcomed in your organization.
• A selected job candidate accepts your offer with no negotiation and obvious joy; the candidates not selected are sad and send followup notes for months.
• You find four or five candidates you'd love to hire, who respond to your job posting of an open position, Or, they contact your organization directly because they want to work in the culture that is shared on your recruiting website. Or, they've heard about your organizations from friends and social networking or running into your current staff at trade shows or conferences.
• The sales team pulls together as a team and sets sales records for the month.
• People ask intelligent questions at the company meetings and are genuinely interested in the responses. They read your distributions and watch meetings that were videoed or put online that they miss.
• When as an HR staff person, you walk through the company and people greet you with a smile at every turn; only a few have questions or complaints to share. Most appreciate the attention you provide.
• When you accomplish a task or project that will actually result in progress for the company. Making a difference is a big deal. Hearing an employee quote something they were taught nine years ago will send chills down your spine.
• When HR staff counsel employees about returning to school or pursuing training and degrees, and, with your tuition assistance help, they actually do it.
• When HR employees watch a staff member perform with confidence in a situation that would have stumped her in earlier days. Their growth over time is amazing.
• When people form friendships that assist the organization and add to their work motivation. They introduce their families and further cement the bonds.
• A staff member leaves your organization for a genuinely better opportunity that you cannot currently, or foreseeable in the future, provide.
• Your team accomplishes your business goals on time and while exhibiting the capability to accomplish and contribute more in the future.
• You are privileged to work with other people who appear to experience great joy at work, too. Their joy creates a contagious circle of friends.

More About Joy in the Workplace

• Keys to Employee Satisfaction
• Top 10 Ways to Be Happy at Work
• How to Make Your Current Job Work