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As you will know, I’ve been somewhat indisposed for the last couple of weeks after a cycling accident.
Following surgery, I’m on the mend - pace not race as always but I’ll be showing up more over the weeks ahead. My wonderful, wonderful clients decided that they missed The Coach Barrow Blog so much, that they would start writing it themselves. So - over the next few days, a few guest posts from active members of The Extreme Business 100 community, sharing their own thoughts, observations and experiences. My gratitude to the contributors and the hope that just one idea will make a positive difference to your day.
How do you measure your team’s happiness? Why do you need to measure their happiness? Do really want to know if your team is happy?
The past 3 years with Brexit, the pandemic and now the cost-of-living crisis, keeping track of mental well-being has never been more important, but how do you know if your team is OK? I started looking at this as part of my vision is that my team are happy. I am told that your vision should be measurable but how do you measure wellbeing?
There are many ways to measure happiness and how happy a person feels is incredibly subjective and relates to time of day. For instance, if you are not a morning person but are asked as you arrive at work how happy are you feeling, you are likely to give a low score, which could be much higher if you are asked the same question when you leave work. Equally, if it’s the boss asking the question, are you going to get an honest answer?
I looked at several options and, in the end, decided to try Team Mood. Team Mood sends each team member an email asking them how their day has been, it can be excellent, good, average, hard or bad. All the team member needs to do is click on the word that best describes how they are feeling. That’s it. It’s completely anonymous, so they can respond honestly rather than feel an expectation to answer a certain way. It’s simple to set up and fully customised. It costs £38 a month after an initial 30-day free trial. Each of my team get an email around lunchtime on the days that they work, it can be paused when they are on holiday. At the end of the day, we get an overall score that reflects the wellbeing of the team. Over time you might see a pattern and if certain events or days always trigger a poor score, you can address them and monitor if the team feel better.
A team member can choose to also leave a comment or just respond, and any other team member can reply to the comment but it’s all anonymous. I ask team members to reach out to me if they score a bad day to see if I can do something to help. I also ask team members to score based on their working day, not home life.
It’s not perfect, I have no idea if a team member is consistently saying they have had a hard day, but my team have engaged with it and feel like they are being listened to. If you want to measure happiness, look at Team Mood, you might just learn something.
I have no financial connection with Team Mood as a company, I just think it’s a great, simple product. www.teammood.com
Dr Carol Somerville Roberts BDS MFDS RCS(Ed) T 01275 842550 E carol@evolve-dentistry.co.uk www.evolve-dentistry.co.uk