HR - On The Job

Nine Ways to Make This a Great Day At Work

Attending a seminar a few months ago, the speaker told us of an employee survey she had done for a client and interviewing an employee. The employee told her that he felt his job was beginning to go sour. He thought the company needed to be making some changes. She asked “Are the conditions on your job really that bad?” His response was “Oh no, conditions are great, he said, free food, employee gym, people spending as much as 20 percent of their time on their own projects and a work environment that encourages play and creative thinking.” “That doesn’t sound like a problem to me” she said. “What could be wrong with that?”

He said, “Nobody wants to go home and it’s cutting into my leisure time”. She said her first thought was, “Some people just won’t be happy”.

Actually, we’ve all had bad days when it was just more comfortable being miserable. And other days when we roll with the punches and won’t let anyone rain on our parade.

Author and HR professional Suzan M. Heathfield says that whether you have a good or a bad day is really up to you. You get to choose. She gives us these nine rules to make every day a good day at work.

  1. Choose to make it a good day. Happiness is largely a choice. It’s a mental adjustment, or maybe an attitude adjustment. But you are the only one in control of how you feel. Others may give you a bad or a good time, but how you deal with it is up to you.
  2. Take charge of your own development. That means both your professional and personal development. When you hear yourself complaining “My boss is not developing my career”. You might ask yourself “Who is the person most interested in my development?” “Who has the most to gain?” The answer of course, is you.
  3. Do something you love every day. You may not love your job and you may not believe you can find something there to love. But you can. Most people do their jobs using the skills and aptitudes they have. What is it that you do well and enjoy doing? What skill do you have that you like using most? Find some way to do your job with the skills, talents, aptitudes and energy you have.
  4. Take responsibility for knowing what’s going on at work. People complain that they don’t receive enough information and information about what is happening with their company, their department projects or their coworkers. They have become like ships that pass in the night. They wait for the boss to fill them up with knowledge and that knowledge rarely comes. Why? Because the boss is busy doing her job and she doesn’t know what you don’t know. Seek out the information you need to work effectively. Develop an information network and use it. Ask your boss for a weekly get-together to do a quick review of what and how things are going. You are in charge of the information you receive.
  5. Ask for feedback regularly. “My boss never gives me any feedback, so I never know how I’m doing”. Have you ever said that? Face it, you know exactly how you’re doing. If you know you’re doing well, you may just want it to be acknowledged. If you know you’re not doing the job, think about what you should or shouldn’t be doing that causing your bad performance. Then discuss this with your boss and ask for feedback. Feedback about how well or poorly you are doing and some guidance on how to progress has got to be one of the most valuable advantages you can have in your life. Don’t wait for it to fall from heaven. Go get it.
  6. Make only the commitments you can keep. One of the real stresses in life is failing to keep commitments. When you begin to realize that you’re spending more time making excuses and dodging the person you’re committed to, the stress only worsens. Create a system of measuring and organizing your work so that you know what you can and cannot take on. Be realistic. Don’t volunteer if you’re just not going to get the job done. Don’t wallow in the swamp of un-kept promises. Under-promise and over-deliver.
  7. Avoid getting dragged down into the negative swamp. If you’re choosing to be happy at work, avoid negative conversation, malicious gossip and unhappy people as much as you can. If you let them, negative people can have a profound effect on your job and that can carry over into your personal life. Don’t let them. It’s an old saying from the ranks; “Non-Legitimum-Carborendum” - Don’t let the B….rds wear you down!
  8. Practice professional courage. Most people don't like conflict. You're not trained to participate in meaningful, problem-solving conflict. So you likely think of conflict as scary, harmful, aggressive and just down-right mean and it can be. But done well, with professionalism and a meaningful purpose can help everyone get things resolved and advanced. It takes a little courage, especially if this is new to you. Why let a little professional courage keep you from achieving your goals and dreams.
  9. Make Friends. In their book “First Break All The Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently: Authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman list several important questions for developing managers to ask themselves. One of the questions was; “Do you have a best friend at work?” Liking and enjoying your coworkers can be a sign of how happy you are in your job. Take time to get to know them. These are the people you have chosen to work with. They can provide mutual support, advice, feedback and a caring ear.

“It’s not your aptitude, but your attitude, that determines your altitude”
– Zig Ziglar

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© William J. Cook