Employee Engagement: The 5 Love Languages hack you didn’t know about
Today is International Happiness Day!! And what better way to mark it than to look at how we can manufacture true happiness in the workplace? In this earlier article, I shared that it’s reported over 70% of employees are disengaged at work. I also wrote about several ways we can improve these numbers through commonly known strategies such as wellness programs. Gallup describes actively disengaged employees as “those who have miserable work experiences and spread their unhappiness to their colleagues.” However, while these types of initiatives may bring about some substantial changes, they’d work better if they were linked to human psychology and individual needs. So what should we really be focusing on in this modern multigenerational & hybrid workplace? Is it free lunches, yogurt machines, or gym memberships? What do employees want? For decades HR teams have used traditional employee surveys to get data on this. But happiness is truly personal and our one-size-fits-all all blanket initiatives for staff have rarely yielded wanted results. These results that companies long for include increased employee retention, better customer service, higher profitability, and increased employee efficiency. One way to apply human psychology to work design is through Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, as I wrote here. Another can be through a more intimate approach to how your team perceives value. As HR experts become experience designers, we must design solutions that are practical but also meaningful. This is where Gary Chapman comes in.
Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful -John Maeda
Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible.-Don Norman
The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate is a 1992 book. It outlines five general ways that individuals express and experience love, which Chapman calls “love languages”. Millions of people worldwide and various have since read it and tests developed to help people have better relationships with themselves and others. But why has this theory become so relevant and widely used? It’s because of the simple fact that individuals receive & interpret affection differently. So if you keep on doing things and wonder why others aren’t as receptive to your well-intentioned efforts in the workplace, read on.
According to Gallup’s recent State of the Workplace report, a significant proportion of employees are not fully engaged in their work. Specifically, 85% of employees are either unengaged or actively disengaged. Unengaged employees, who make up 67% of this group, are indifferent to the success of their company and do the bare minimum required of them. They are often referred to as “quiet quitters,” as they may not overtly express their dissatisfaction but are unlikely to go above and beyond in their work.
Many resources have been created on the 5 love languages for couples in a romantic relationship, friends, parents, and even children. However, little has been developed to help team leads and managers who often struggle to connect with, engage, and retain their employees. So here’s how you can use this model to improve your team cohesion, employee engagement, and overall profitability of your company;
Words of affirmation
Words build up as equally as they can kill. Even the Bible says so. Encourage, affirm, empathize, and appreciate as often as you can. Give frequent verbal acknowledgments such as "You're doing a great job," "That was fantastic," "I understand your feelings," "Keep up the good work," "That was a great meeting," "You're improving on this," "I'm proud of you," etc. Others include compliments, thank-you notes, words of appreciation, hero boards, employee recognition awards, and digital engagement e.g. social media shout-outs. You can also encourage your teams to engage in mindfulness-related activities such as meditation moments where you can listen to positive affirmations related to work every morning or week or better yet, compose your own! I know of a manager who had a Power Talk every Monday morning with his team to encourage & motivate them. There’s a reason Motivation is a billion-dollar industry after all! Words are directly tied to motivation which ties to performance.
“If we understood the power of our thoughts, we would guard them more closely. If we understood the awesome power of our words, we would prefer silence to almost anything negative. In our thoughts and words, we create our own weaknesses and our own strengths. Our limitations and joys begin in our hearts. We can always replace negative with positive.” -Betty Eadie
“Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs.” -Pearl Strachan Hurd
“Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate, and to humble.” -Yehuda Berg
Acts of service
Ask your team every week “What can I do this week to make your life easier this week, month, or year?” Here, actions speak louder than words. These can include taking up your colleague’s extra load of work, assisting them to prepare for an important meeting, or introducing them to a relevant network. Setting up a breastfeeding area or kids' play area can also be considered an act of service as parents can feel better knowing other areas are being taken care of. If possible, set up onsite services such as gym, cafeteria, laundry, massage chair, counseling, and even organize office commute with a transport partner. INGOS are best known for this as they provide several employee wellbeing services such as daycare and even schooling options.
Receiving gifts
It’s not about the monetary value but the symbolic thought behind the item. People who have this style recognize and value the gift-giving process, which includes careful reflection, deliberate choice of the object to represent the relationship and the emotional benefits of receiving the present. The key is to give meaningful things that matter to them and reflect their values, not necessarily yours,” says Mahmud-Syed. For instance, a new mom may appreciate a blanket or a Free Off-Day ticket for Mother's Day more than a fruit basket or chocolate.
Quality time
This is about giving your colleagues undivided attention and having meaningful conversations and time with them. This can include team bonding activities, private one-on-one check-in meetings, offsite lunches, picnics, no distraction-focused meetings, mentorship & coaching, stand-ups, etc. Work intentionally on building your team's intimacy and create special moments. I know of a company where individuals are matched up based on their hobbies and encouraged to do offsite meetups e.g. cookups, hikes, movies, kids' days, etc.
Physical touch
No, we’re not talking about breaking any harassment rules here! These are people who value the affection & comfort that comes with physically being connected to other people you value. This can be through space design i.e. intentionally organizing your offices in a way that makes it easy for people to move around and communicate often, removing physical barriers such as the now common open office barriers, colorful Google-like meeting rooms, hangout zones, and more. You can also organize more physical team outings as most hybrid workplaces do e.g. annual team building retreats or sports activities, giving high fives, hugs if allowed, etc. The goal is to feel physically connected to the company and others.
How to get started;
- Get all members of your team to take the love languages tests. The better you all are on self-awareness, the easier it will become to be happy.
- Organize a meeting where you can go around sharing your individual test results & primary love languages
- Create an action plan for the team & company on how you can translate this data into insights by working with the relevant parties to personalize employee engagement initiatives as much as you can.
- Observe-measure-learn-modify-repeat
For more EE ideas, check out our earlier articles on;
- Sports-Your missed golden ticket opportunity to positive mental health & employee engagement
- Finding the balance between work and life this New Year
- How your employees can help you reach your employer branding goals-Recruiting Marketing Series
- Looking for New Year HR Ideas? Try Reverse Mentoring
- Why you should take personality tests this year. (The science of self-awareness)
Making employees happy doesn’t have to be rocket science. Nor do you have to pay expensive consultants to tell you what your people need. Listen actively to what people say they need. Act on it and keep on doing the best that you can every day.
Happy International Happiness Day!