5 ways to get thriving employees

Is there anything better for a manager than to receive an email from a team member with a great idea AND an effective plan to achieve the goals? Managing teams can be very rewarding when you are dealing with a team of thriving employees.

Why should you aim for thriving employees?

Thriving employees are satisfied, more productive and they are engaged in creating the future, both the company’s and their own. Thriving employees have a bit of an edge, are highly energised and they know how to avoid burnout. Here’s some data that will make you want thriving employees:

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  • 125% less burnout (self-reported)
  • They demonstrate 16% better overall performance (reported by their managers)
  • Are 32% more engaged with the company and 46% are more fulfilled with their work
  • About blue-collar employees, the study shows that the thriving ones are 53% more likely to have a positive career progression than their colleagues.

Five ways to create the conditions for thriving employees:

  1. Hire the right people: make sure that you are hiring people that share similar values to your company’s. Having a solid culture will help you transmit these values and attract the right people.
  2. Involve your team in goal setting and other decisions: setting up challenging and interesting goals will empower your workers. But don’t forget to give them the tools to achieve those goals!
  3. Share information: Some call it the tyranny of transparency, but you don’t need to share your accounting books to everybody. Just try to be transparent on how the company is progressing, making each person part of a bigger picture. Make sure each person understands how important their role is in the company, give them autonomy, trust and you will be surprised!
  4. Avoid toxic workers, or change them: there are people who turn toxic given the wrong conditions in their personal and professional lives. Here’s an interesting article about how to change a toxic culture.
  5. Offer performance feedback: transparency also applies to defining clear performance outcomes and rewards.

Have you ever been part of a company where the employees were thriving and you were thrilled to be part of it? If you have, why don’t you share your experience with us?

This article has been written based on my experience managing virtual teams and on the knowledge and data provided by Gretcher Spreitzer and Christine Porath in their article “Creating Sustainable Performance”, Harvard Business Review (January-February, 2012).

Image credit: Pusteblumenland

Anna Danés
Anna worked in the web sector before founding Ricaris have a nice day (www.ricaris.com) in 2009, a successful services company providing distributed solutions for companies in the web sector. Managing Virtual Teams (www.managing-virtual-teams.com) is a new consulting product bringing together all of the experience across the distributed teams of Ricaris, and putting it into bite-sized courses, virtual team activities, and consulting packages. Follow Anna @virtualteams