Listen up, employers: If you want to make your employees happy, you have to make them feel supported, according to Dr. Emma Seppälä, the author of the new book The Happiness Track.
In a conversation with HuffPost Live's Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani on Tuesday, Seppälä explained that company leaders need to care about employees "as human beings." She recommended they learn about employees' family situations and have a system in place to know when staff members are sick.
"Research shows that if employees feel that they're actually taken care and people care about them, they're more likely to be happy," Seppälä said. "And when they're happier in the workplace, there's less turnover, more loyalty."
There's a common misconception, Seppälä added, that loyalty is tied to the size of a paycheck. On the contrary, she said, this isn't true if employees are happy and feel a sense of purpose. She outlined tips for how employers can create more workplace wellness:
I would encourage employers to cultivate values like kindness, trust, respect in the office as a norm, and I would also encourage employers to include opportunities for service. Or let their employees know how they're benefitting other people, because what we know from research is that people are happier when they feel like they're contributing to a greater cause.
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