Studies have shown that getting praise and recognition at work makes us happier, more productive, more creative, more resilient, and less stressed, just to mention some of the effects. 

But studies also show that positive feedback is much too rare in our workplaces. We did a survey that found that the third most common cause of unhappiness at work was when people feel they do a great job, but no one notices.

Here’s the good news: we can do something about it. Anyone can give anyone else positive feedback at work. You don’t have to wait for your boss to see the light and start recognizing people. You can be the one to do it, and you can make a huge difference when you do. ‘Cause make no mistake about it: a positive comment at the right time can make someone’s day. It can make someone’s entire week better.  

And it really doesn’t need to be that complicated. Here are five great ways that you can praise someone else at work today.

How do you know that you’re unhappy at work? That something is not right and that it’s time to either make some changes at work or move on to a new job?

In my work, I talk to a lot of people who are not happy with their jobs. Here are the top ten symptoms of unhappiness at work that I’ve observed. How many apply to you?

Quitting a job you don’t like is a tough call, and it’s made even tougher by some very persistent myths.

These myths keep us stuck in bad jobs and give bad leaders and toxic workplaces much more power over us than they otherwise would’ve. Let’s change that.

Here are the top five myths about quitting a bad job.

There are four different kinds of motivation. Only one of them works and unfortunately, many managers focus exclusively on the other three. Kinda silly, huh?

Many people don’t feel motivated at work, and there’s a very simple explanation for this: The motivational techniques used by most managers don’t work.

In this video I show why most bosses fail to motivate staff and what actually does work.

More and more CEOs are hell-bent on forcing employees back to the office full time.

For a long time I have been really confused about why, but now a brand new study reveals the answer – and it is NOT any of the reasons they normally give like productivity or collaboration – it is something much more sinister.

There haven’t been a lot of positive outcomes from the COVID pandemic but the widespread flexibility to work from home is one. Maybe the only one.

Workers love it because they experience more flexibility, better work-life balance and higher productivity but over the last couple of years, a growing number of CEOs have been doing their best to roll it back and force everyone back into the office full time.

Well, now for the first time we have data! A fascinating new research article just gave the answer: It’s about protecting and boosting the egos of narcissistic CEOs.

In this video I go through the results of the study and how it applies in our workplaces.

Links

• Read the study itself
• The NY Times article about it
• Dacher Keltner’s research on privilige and power

This is AWESOME. A practice football field in Canada has hired two border collies to keep geese away – and they clearly LOVE their jobs!

While this might be a little too much for the average workplace, one thing we teach many of our clients is the value of actually saying “good morning” to your coworkers/employees in the morning.

There are several approaches to saying good morning at work:
Level 0: You ignore people completely
Level 1: A somewhat unintelligible grunt
Level 2: Saying good morning without looking at people
Level 3: Make eye contact as you say good morning
Level 4: Also say something more than just good morning, e.g. “How are you?” or something more personal.
Level 5: Also touch the other person – e.g. a handshake or a pat on the shoulder. You can even hug, but only if you and the other person want to.

Specifically, we recommend the “Level 5 Good Morning.” What you see in the video above with the teacher is probably more of a level 6 or 7 :)

It’s a small thing. It takes no time and costs no money, but  it makes people happier at work – in our opinion because it reinforces good workplace relationships between coworkers and between managers and employees.

And it works. Here are two examples:

I once worked for a bank in Germany (well these are two locations in which you would not normally expect “personal affection” ;-)).

The team was large, about 40 people worked in one open space office. It surprised me a lot that every morning, whoever arrived, walked through the whole office and greeted everybody with a handshake and some personal words. It did not matter if the team members came, the bosses from higher up or anybody from another department. It was known everywhere that here you greet everybody personally.

For the first week, I found that very strange and a bit intimidating. Also, it cost a lot of time all in all. Yet afterwards, I really enjoyed it. It gave everybody the chance to get to know the colleagues a bit better, to hear what they are off to or to realize that somebody is not in or just returned from a trip or vacation. There was no need to e-mail weekly lists on who is out when. We just knew it.

Btw, when I moved on to another job, I sort of missed it.

And this one is great too:

Actually the level 5 good morning is working a treat – which is why I’ve kept it up!

I have a new team member that I supervise who sits next to me, and Mihaly also sits with us in the same section, which can be a bitdaunting for a new team member!! The three of us collaborate really well together, and I think the level 5 good morning has helped our new team member feel comfortable…

In fact, the three of us just worked on an urgent roll-out of our new website, and we had a great team dynamic – everyone knew their role, trusted one another, communicated perfectly. It was great.

I think the level 5 good morning was a big contributor to that… It’s hard to measure though isn’t it, you sort of just ’feel’ the effect. Anyway, thanks for the invaluable advice!

The opposite is also true: If someone comes into the workplace and says good morning and gets no real reaction, that can lead to people feeling isolated, ignored and lonely – which makes some people really unhappy at work.

So say “good morning” at work. It works!

It’s great for them to see how this is done in practice and how employee happiness contributes to the bottom line.

Last week we took the group to Airlog Group’s Copenhagen office where their co-founder and CEO Allan Geert Nielsen explained their strategic approach to happiness at work and how it helps them succeed in the challenging market of global shipping and logistics.

Here are some of his major points:

• Happiness is the foundation of Airlog’s strategy and the main factor that contributes to the company’s success
• The company has grown 225% in the last 5 years
• But they don’t stress over budgets or put pressure on employees if the company doesn’t hit a monthly target
• They hire for happiness – happiness at work is mentioned in every job ad
• They have a flat organization and give their employees a lot of autonomy and freedom
• Employee happiness is not about perks and bonuses- it’s about results and relationships
• Building genuine relationships inside the company and with clients is crucial and requires human beings who care about their work

My favorite story is how they recently acquired a group of people in Sweden who joined them because they’d heard that working for Airlog is fun. This group has now brought in millions in new business.

Another thing that really inspired the visitors was Airlog’s 15-minute pledge where they promise to follow up on all customer requests in less than 15 minutes inside their business hours. They had 1,000 fifteen-minute hourglasses made and give them away to clients and contacts as a symbol of the promise.

But crucially, it’s not something they measure or criticize employees for not living up to – it’s mostly a source of pride for Airlog’s people that they can serve their customers quickly and competently.

But my all time favorite Airlog story is about the time they transported the batmobile. No kidding!

Airlog is an inspiration for me and real proof that happiness at work is the main driver of company growth and profits. And you should come to our Chief Happiness Officer Academy yourself and learn exactly how it’s done!

They came from companies in Tech, Logistics, Science, Hospitality, Child Care and Finance and can now take a massive amount of new knowledge and tools back to their companies to make them happier and more successful.

They all took the exam at the and and I’m proud to announce that they all passed! Kudos!

These Academies are my favorite thing to teach and a great chance to really cover all the crucial theory and practice of happiness at work over three days.

The Academy is happening again in November 2026 and June 2027. Read more and sign up right here.

They were especially impressed that the newsletter is:
Valuable – we share all our best tools freely
Effective – people actually read the email
Not pushy – we’re not just trying to sell stuff

I’m already super proud of our newsletter because our main focus is to share everything we know about happiness at work and inspire people to take action, and this case story just makes me even prouder!

And it really seems that the more materials we share openly and freely, the more attention and business we attract.

Also, if you’re looking for a platform for your newsletters, MailerLite is great – it has every feature you could want and it’s really easy to use!

Read the case story here. It has a ton of tips for using email effectively to spread your message.

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