In recent weeks, we have written several times about the influence of internal digital media on work happiness. Colleague Evelien Mak did a study from Evolve.as the last part of this theme, we would like to share more with you about happiness at work in practice. Because what actually comes into play when you start working in the organization with job satisfaction? Marjon Schumacher, head of HR at BNNVARA tells us about it from her experiences in the latest episode of & nbsp;YellowChat. In this blog we share with you an abridged version of her story in written form.
You work at BNNVARA. What exactly is your role there?
“As head of HR at BNNVARA, I work to guide employees in their work from their application to the moment they leave our organization. That is, for example, helping to get the right people in the right place or in personal development issues.”
“I first worked as a freelancer and from there I was asked to work fully for the company. That’s what I wanted, because the world of Broadcasters is very beautiful. BNNVARA themselves appealed to me very much because they have a mission to work with heart and soul for justice and equality. That made me feel very drawn to this work.”
You speak with great passion about your work. Is that an important part of job satisfaction, in your opinion?
‘If you can do meaningful work or you experience satisfaction in your work, that certainly contributes to how happy you feel about your work. But that’s not all. Work happiness is about so many aspects and of course everyone experiences that wedifferently. A common denominator is having autonomy or freedom to complete your work in your own way. In addition, gaining the trust of managers is also very important.”
In the previous episode of yellowchat, we discussed the four pillars of Job Happiness. Now that you mention these aspects, in practice it seems a lot more complex than from a manual.
‘What I know from my experience is that individual work happiness has many dimensions. As a manager, you can easily do something about it. Work happiness at a larger level, in teams or in the organization, is much more complicated. Then you have to start clustering all aspects to – in this case – the four pillars of job happiness in order to get a common picture of it.”
To what extent then does the responsibility lie with the organization and to what extent with the employee himself?
‘The organization can take many initiatives and give guidelines that look at the needs of the employees. The responsibility lies with the employee to open up and indicate where those needs lie. This requires managers who listen and take action to help employees. The employer must provide a safe and trusted environment for this, and the organization must be willing to invest in it.”
In this case, happiness at work depends on many facets, for example on the role of the manager. It takes quite a bit from the organization to direct the variety of executives and supervise the layer below. How do you deal with that complexity?
“Every manager has his own style and we have to keep that. You can make agreements together about how you organize certain things as a manager. How often you have conversations with employees, how you deal with signals from the team or when you involve HR. How can you get a concrete agreement on this? At the time, my employer at Eurail asked about the well-being of the team through a weekly survey. This made the difference between and within teams visible and managers could also enter into conversation with each other. In the long term, I also want to introduce something like this at BNNVARA in an appropriate way.”
And you also had a colleague at Eurail who was concerned with work happiness on a daily basis.
‘In our team, someone was indeed appointed as an occupational health expert. That was about the organizational cultures pursuing our values. But that was also very practical. For example, she came up with the plant library,in which colleagues take a number of plants to the workplace from the shelving unit every morning.”
That is a very nice example of work happiness in practice, but it is especially nice when you sit together in the office. How do you organize something like this at BNNVARA in these times, when not everyone is in the office?
‘You can see that employees experience their happiness at work very differently. Some people find it very pleasant to work from home, because of reduced travel time and more time for the family. The other finds it terrible and misses colleagues or does not have a suitable workplace in the house.”
“We saw this in studies that we did recently within BNNVARA. Most people reported missing the physical presence of colleagues. Through video calls, interconnectedness is a lot more difficult. You can hardly match that as an organization, but we have done everything to facilitate online contact. A pub quiz, lectures, Funny Games or just chat with each other viabreakoutrooms. We had something on the agenda every Thursday.”
‘However, what you sometimes forget is that everyone is already looking at the screen all day and therefore may not feel like having an online drink anymore. In the long run, employees became particularly interested in meeting each other physically. Therefore, at some point we also fed the standard Bilas in the forest.”
Has that been a way for you to start working on a small scale?
‘You can make it as big and small as you want. It starts with having a good conversation. This is the first step, and anyone can do it. Within the frameworks that exist now, it is very important to maintain contact with each other. This can be done by video call, telephone or during a walk on location.”
Do you actually see a difference in job happiness within BNNVARA before and after corona?
“I see the difference especially in the involvement, which is really less. But by continuously sitting at home in the workplace, the enthusiasm for many colleagues has also decreased.”
Our research showed that younger employees experience less job satisfaction than older colleagues when working from home. In other words, older employees on average give a higher report rate to their job happiness. Do you recognize that at BNNVARA?
‘According to the studies within BNNVARA, the happiness at work of young employees has in any case decreased compared to before the corona crisis. For them, the impact of the corona crisis is not only very great in the field of work; they can no longer go out or meet with friends. More has changed in their lives and that affects job happiness. For both young and old, this situation requires quite a bit of resilience.”
We now work from home due to corona, but many organizations say they are no longer fully returning to working in the office. In other words, hybrid working, with remote work and meetings in the office. How do you see that?
“That requires a lot from the organization. A department needs a physical meeting place for meetings such as a brainstorm. But this meeting must also be hybrid. People need to be able to join both physically and online. This requires a good infrastructure. Webcams, monitors and a good internet connection should ensure that employees can be flexible and can also participate remotely. When designing the office, we must therefore already take into account what we are going to use the office for.”
Technical infrastructure and facility aspects play a role in this, but it also requires some of the skills of the person leading such a session. You want to make sure that participants feel connected both physically and online and that there is no’ingroup‘and’outgroup‘ ontstaat. Is is there – as with job satisfaction-a role for the managers here too?
“It has to be one of the qualities of a leader to be able to create engagement for everyone. In a meeting or within the team. The role of internal communication is also important here, because that ensures that everything HR develops also ends up in the organization. Internal communication helps to get employees involved.”
Do you have one last tip for anyone who wants to get started with work happiness right now?
‘Step one is to listen sincerely to the employees. And then really what to do with the help request or tip from the employee. By doing so, show that you are listening to their suggestions and taking action for them.”
