This holiday season, please spend more time with your family or friends. The importance of connection, happiness, and relationship formation should never be underestimated. Humans are social creatures; you and everyone you know need connection.
How are you able to find and establish more connections in the workplace, however? The idea of working collaboratively, while vague, is motivational on a multitude of levels. One of the best components of being at the office, as opposed to working from home, is working with others.
Connection and Contribution
Finding ways to spend time with others has been shown to increase dopamine levels, your body’s motivation, and happiness neurotransmitter. Assuredly, it is exactly why offices with a more open floor plan house happier workers, since they are more conducive to teamwork.
Another exciting way to involve the most happiness possible with the holidays is with food. Although it may feel like bribery, food is an incredibly effective way to ensure that employees are engaged and motivated to complete their work. Aside from providing employees with a luncheon, a company could order specific meals for their employees.
One other way to ensure that employees are having the most enjoyment from working during the holidays is making them as comfortable as possible. Perhaps an office holiday party is in order. Figuring out different means or ways to get people together is of utmost importance.
Diversity and Inclusion
Efforts towards diversity and inclusion need to be made too. Especially around the holidays, employers must be sensitive about the appropriate holidays to ensure that they are all being observed. Treating employees with respect towards their faith, beliefs, or value system is integral to supporting their happiness and success.
Strangely enough, once an individual employee’s success and happiness are guaranteed, then the company’s success will quickly follow. Working with a co-worker who is driven, motivated, and committed to their work is like living with someone who has a positive version of COVID-19; it is highly contagious and self-perpetuating. Thankfully, this beneficial disease should then spread around the company, positively reinforcing everything along the way.
Although it may seem counterproductive about the immediate profit margins of a company or the short-term success of an employee, ensuring that employees have enough time off and are treated fairly is of the utmost importance. Far too often, employees are treated as dispensable, unimportant specimens, who ultimately get no say in the time off they receive or even the amount of breaks they receive in a day. Remedying this, especially around the holidays, will allow all parties involved, both the employer and the employee, to realize the most wellness possible. Once wellness is established, success is sure to follow.
The Benefits of Unionization
From an employee perspective, the most beneficial way to achieve these goals is by establishing a worker’s union. Banding together as a group of employees guarantees that the employees are treated with respect and listened to in the first place. Creating a single voice that is drawn from a collective is a fundamental and vital step in achieving long-term stability for an employee.
Thankfully, there are great examples of union success in today’s pop cultural world. The musical, Newsies, details the story of an early 20th century worker’s union, that successfully fights for fair wages and a sense of respect from its employer. Bolstered by rousing music and effervescent technicality, this vision of proletariat success is magical.
Relaxation and Refreshment
These are merely a few ideas of how a company or employee can find more success and happiness this holiday season. With this newfound time off and fellow company support, you should be able to enjoy time with your family or loved ones. If perhaps, they are not around, then you can spend time looking after yourself or engaging yourself in pursuits you enjoy. Regardless, time should be freed for your enjoyment and spent on yourself, rather than working out of necessity’s sake.
This holiday season, spend time with your loved ones and or yourself, ensuring that you and the people you hold dear are happy, and healthy. There are no downsides to this proposition. Make sure you are relaxed, well-rested, and motivated on your return to the office. Perhaps incorporate some weekly or even daily relaxation time, which can include pursuing hobbies or interests that are meaningful and motivational to you. The most important thing is that an employee is happy, supported, and refreshed. A union organization can be instituted to assist in the realization of this reality.
