Did you know that, according to Gallup, a person's career is the element of well-being that most strongly influences her or his overall sense of well-being? In fact, a person with high career well-being is more than twice as likely to have high overall well-being.

What can workplaces such as yours do to help employees engage at work? They can:

• Enhance employees’ sense of competence
• Foster a sense of purpose
• Increase autonomy
• Cultivate the conditions for trusting relationships                              
• Meaningfully recognize and reward employees

Consider adopting some of the specific ideas below to help employees thrive at work.

Encourage employees to challenge themselves.

• Post a large sheet of paper in a common area or online that reads, “What I’m good at is …” or “I’m a leader because …”
• Use the “magical feedback” phrase shown by research to improve performance: “I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know you can reach them.”
• Introduce managers to career coaching in the form of “stay interviews.” Here is an example of the stay interview* used by Hennepin County.

Make it clear why the work matters. 

• Try author Daniel Pink’s exercise called, “Whose Purpose Is It Anyway?” in which everyone answers the question, “What is the purpose of this organization?”
• Read this article by Lindsay McGregor and Neel Doshi, and consider holding a weekly reflection huddle where employees answer these three questions:

* What did you learn this week?

* What impact did you have this week?

* What do you want to learn next week?

Grow an accountability culture.

• For regular encouragement to unleash employee initiative, subscribe to Daniel Pink’s newsletter.
• As suggested by Morton T. Hansen in Great At Work: How Top Performers Do Less, Work Better, and Achieve More, consider how your workplace could be redesigned to improve quality and be more efficient.

Increase employees’ sense of belonging through creative tools and activities.

• Learn about employees’ values and how to best work with them by creating user manuals or by filling out the “I am great worksheet” by Alexandra Franzen.
• Use icebreakers* so employees can show themselves more at work.

Find ways for employees to shine.

• Tell recognition stories in meetings and newsletters to powerfully reinforce your organization’s culture, mission, goals, and values, as well as to engage employees. Employees are particularly eager to hear recognition stories that come from customers or clients.
• Read this inspiring blog that describes how one local manager sets a high bar for showing gratitude to employees.

On August 2, 2018, Health@Work will host the Take Charge@Work training to address each of the strategies in this newsletter, and offer a free, follow-up peer coaching group. To take up this challenge, sign up here. To further explore creating the conditions for career well-being, check out the following resources:

For challenge: Getting Things Done by David Allen; the WorkLife with Adam Grant podcast; these LinkedIn tips*; the Midwest Worksite Health Promotion Conference on October 1, 2018; and Harvard Business Review’s free newsletters.

For purpose: This short video in which Stanford Professor Jennifer Aaker explains how purpose relates to health and satisfaction at work.

For autonomy: Research shows that Results-Only Work Environment, with its focus on results rather than set schedules and locations, decreases work-family conflict and staff turnover, improves health, and avoids the gender and morning biases that can occur with flextime.

For connection: The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle, and Michael Kerr’s excellent humor-at-work newsletter.

For recognition: Companion online resources to The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath offers concrete suggestions for how to elevate moments in employees’ lives.

*If you cannot access Google documents, email linda.brandt@hennepin.us to request a copy.

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Click here to read this month's E-tips for your employees titled "Could YOU improve your work life?".

To share these E-tips with employees:  

• Email the E-tips document to your staff as an attachment. 1) Click the link to download and save the E-tips to your computer. 2) Add your organization's logo in the bottom left corner. 3) Then send it as an email attachment to staff. 
• Or print the document once you've added your organization's logo and post it in a common area in your workplace.
• Or copy and paste the text into your organization's newsletter.

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