5 tips to get more pleasure from your work

How happy are you at work? And has this decreased since the pandemic? Research shows that almost a third of employees have had less pleasure in their current job since the corona crisis.

The biggest cause? We miss the contact with colleagues. Now that many organizations will continue to work from home in the future partly, it is good to find out how we can continue to enjoy our work.

How to increase your happiness at work (while working from home)

Many of these tips are not only useful when working from home but are always useful.

Invest time in your colleagues

The research clarifies that your colleagues and the atmosphere at work are an important part of your happiness at work.

Make sure you block time in your schedule for a (virtual) coffee with colleagues, give them a heartfelt compliment now and then, or do another good deed. “Behaviour leads to different behavior,” according to the initiators. So treat your colleagues the way you want to be treated yourself.

Provide enough challenge in your work

Challenge is also key, according to Indeed. Take every opportunity to develop yourself, or talk to your manager about training and courses.

If you do not develop yourself, you are quickly drawn into the daily grind. Especially if you work at home and have no demands from colleagues, every day can feel a bit the same this way.

Also, look at the positive aspects

Although working from home does make us lonelier, there are also a lot of benefits. This gives you much more opportunity to organize your days flexibly. And let autonomy be an important pillar of happiness at work.

For example, start work as early as you would normally leave home to do a sports session or get a coffee with another home worker.

Now that we are slowly letting go of the one-and-a-half-meter society, it will soon be possible to go to the office a little more often. Of course, it may very well be that you are the happiest. Make sure you schedule plenty of contact with colleagues on these days. You can pick up your focus work during a day of working from home.

Upgrade your workplace

Do you still sit at the kitchen table every day working on a laptop? Then it makes sense that your brain still sees this as a ‘temporary solution’ and that it is difficult to keep work and private life separate.

Therefore, invest in an ergonomic laptop stand, mouse and keyboard and see if you have room for a small desk somewhere in the house.

Do a negative visualization for more happiness at work

Are you looking for an out-of-the-box way to get back to work? You do that by imagining losing your job, says Laurie Santos, a psychology professor at Yale University. This is called a ‘negative visualization.’ Here you imagine that tomorrow is your last working day.

Not only does this help you realize what is fun about your job, but it also ensures that you find out what you are not going to miss. Then make sure to change this by starting a conversation with your manager. We often have more influence on our work than we think.

Are you not going to miss anything, and are you overjoyed during this visualization? Then it might be time for a new job.