Ways to boost employees

Encourage your managers to talk about corporate values

Another surprising way to make people happy is to encourage your managers to talk with their teams about the company’s values.

Replogle also took time away from talking about the global launch to encourage his direct reports to discuss company values with their people. The reason? The values discussion would help people feel more connected to the company’s mission.

Achor wrote that Replogle’s “emphasis on fostering positive leadership kept his managers engaged and cohesive as they successfully made the transition to a global company.” to make eye contact and smile. When they walk within 5 feet, they should say hello.

10/5 has paid off for Ochsner in the form of more unique patient visits, a 5 percent increase in patients’ likelihood to recommend Ochsner and “a significant improvement in medical-practice provider scores,” according to Achor. And, people who work for successful companies that please their clients tend to be more satisfied.

View stress as a performance enhancer

Work is often stressful, so I was surprised to learn that it’s possible to train people to think about stress positively as a force that enhances the brain and body, but also negatively as debilitating to performance.

Researchers showed videos with positive and negative messages on stress to managers at UBS. Six weeks later, the managers who saw the positive video experienced a big health improvement and an increase in their happiness at work, Achor wrote.

Encourage your people to list their stresses and make small, concrete steps to reduce the stressors they can control. Those small steps can nudge their brains back to a positive and productive mindset.

Hire people with high life satisfaction

If you can’t train people to a higher life-satisfaction score, hire people who already have one.

Gallup researchers found that retail employees in a store who scored high on life satisfaction generated $21 more in earnings per square foot than employees with lower scores in the retailer’s other stores.

That sounds like a compelling business case for hiring happy people.

Peter Cohan is a strategy consultant, startup investor, corporate speaker and the author of 13 books.