Nowadays happiness seems to be the main issue in the workspace, but what exactly does it mean to be a happy worker? Last Wednesday Future Your Work invited over the guys of “Corporate Rebels” for an inspirational talk concerning “Happiness at Work”.
A WORKSHOP FULL OF DOUBTS?!
The rebels believe that the way most organizations are run is out-dated and this belief is backed up by statistics that state that 87% of employees are disengaged with their work. It’s time for a change and autonomy, freedom and trust seemed to be the keywords needed for this change. Although I’m all for equality, making my own schedules and exploiting unique talents, I found their words to be quite idealistic. Quite frankly, it stirred something up inside me, as it seemed to be too black and white. It wasn’t until the very end of the workshop that I could finally say: “It finally makes some sense”. The reason for this being, hearing Pim say: “it’s not a one-size fits all solution”.
We got some examples of “Happy Companies” in which they’ve gotten rid of middle management, but I still have my doubts if it’s going to work. Sure for organizations like “Buurtzorg” this might work, but I don’t think you can apply this to every kind of company. In another example, we saw a company that selects employees based on social skills and on how well they would fit in. Honestly, I think this is an awful idea, because this way you would reject people for their personality who might otherwise have a positive influence on achieving the goals of the company.
WHAT WORKS (FOR ME)?!
In the end it all comes down to personal preferences, seeing that some people like to work from nine to five without having to question everything that they do. Ofcourse for others this might not be the case and they would like to have some more autonomy and freedom in their work. I actually agreed on it being a good thing for me personally, but I just felt that too many things were left out of the equation.
In my case a working environment that makes me happy would mean, being treated with respect, being able to work without having to look over your shoulder every second of the day to make sure if the boss in not hounding you. Although the previous sentences make it look like I’m all aboard on the whole autonomy and freedom for all concept, I would like to add that for me to be able to work to my full potential would mean, having targets, having deadlines and having supervisors to check if I did a good job.
In my opinion, Corporate Rebels is a great initiative that might help out a lot of workers to find happiness in their work. But in the end, I think it all comes down to personal preferences, what works for you doesn’t necessarily work for me.
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