What it all comes down to is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. At the bottom, there are the basic needs for survival. Well, showing up for work is what most people need to do to make sure they can afford the basic necessities. The second tier is safety; do people feel secure in their job? Depending on the company, safety may or may not be guaranteed, and unfortunately management can’t always control these situations. The third step is love/belonging, in the case of an office environment, making the employees feel welcomed and at home. This is probably where the office plant idea comes in. The final two steps are where making corporate wellness a priority becomes more difficult: Esteem and Self-actualization.
Providing personalized feedback and clearly exhibiting respect might be good steps towards building an employee’s self esteem, but if the work that he or she is producing doesn’t feel meaningful to them, a simple pat on the back might not cut it. Especially if employees are part of a larger network with limited contact to individual managers, this structure may not even be feasible. We can’t force people into feeling the creative flow of self-actualization, so how can we boost employee productivity?
While free coffee and words of encouragement might feel like a good place to start, perhaps the easiest way of sparking creativity is by encouraging employees not to work—or at least to pull their heads out of the problem for a moment. According to a study lead by Sophie Ellwood, there’s concrete reason to believe that creativity and bursts of insight are born out of breaks. A Harvard Business Review of the study put it simply: “Taking a break from the problem and focusing on something else entirely gives the mind some time to release its fixation on the same solutions and let the old pathways fade from memory. Then, when you return to the original problem, your mind is more open to new possibilities.”
The long-sought solution for increasing employee productivity may just come down to a basic human need. Humans aren’t wired to work continuously on a single task for a whole day—even if that’s what our work-life demands. But this begs the question, is there a right kind of break? While bursts of inspiration may come from simply breaking the thought pattern for a minute or two, happiness also has been seen to have a significant effect on how well a person can work. According to a study at the University of Warwick , people are 12% more productive when they’re happy. In other words, there may be extra benefit from giving employees a happiness-inducing break, rather than just any break. If an employee chooses to watch a heartbreaking news story in the middle of their project, while it could alter their perspective, it may bog them down emotionally, reducing their energy and drive.
So should we just stick with the safe bet of office plant installation? No, UpJoy offers a solution for providing employees with well-timed breaks that will give them a chance to change their mindset while boosting positivity. With UpJoy, management can provide their workforce with opportunities to watch happy and healthy content for the amount of time that they feel would best benefit the workers. Even better, UpJoy will send out randomized surveys so that employers can get a feel for how well the software works. Helping employees feel creative and inspired has never been so simple!
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