tips – Jason Hensel

Fast Company recently published an article by Lydia Dishman titled “The Secrets of America’s Happiest Companies.” Dishman covers a lot of ground about the ways different companies keep employees happy. For those that like bullet lists, though, she broke it down to five good best practices.

Variety: Happy employees experience different roles within the company, which can create a feeling of improvement.
Meaning: Employees want to feel like they’re making a difference in the world, or at least for their company.
Praise: Employees like regular praise and public acknowledgement for a great job.
Individual: A people-first policy will go a long way in keeping employees happy. No more widget makers. They want recognition as humans.
Integration: The term “work-life balance” is no longer applicable in the 21st century. Focus on how to reasonably integrate work and life within an employee’s daily activities.

Check out the full article for more about how to keep employees happy, and let me know in the comments what makes you happy at work.

(Image via Flickr: Dice.com / Creative Commons)

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Red is attractive color. For example, those who drive red cars get pulled over more often than drivers of other car colors. It’s eye catching, and according to a new study published in the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research, it’s profitable, too.

“In their study of 272 restaurant customers, researchers Nicolas Guéguen and Céline Jacob found not only that male patrons gave higher tips than female patrons in general, but that men gave between 14.6 percent and 26.1 percent more to waitresses wearing red, while color had no effect on female patrons’ tipping behavior at all,” stated a press release from SAGE Publications. “The researchers explained that previous research has found that red increases the physical and sexual attractiveness of women.”

The researchers had 11 waitresses wear the same T-shirt in different colors in five restaurants on different days over a six-week period. They told all the waitresses to act as they normally would to all customers and to record how much they received as a tip from each customer.

“As red color has no negative effect on women customers, it could be in their interest to wear red clothes at work,” the researchers said.

And now I can’t get the song “The Lady in Red” out of my head.

(Image via Flickr: Tim Dobbelaere / Creative Commons)

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Jason Hensel

Five Ways to Have Happy Employees

Waitresses Wearing Red Get Higher Tips