Spread good news, it’s contagious!

Are you tired of hearing tough or bad news all the time? Turn on the TV and we hear about Omicron spiking, overcrowding of hospitals and people dying. Go to work and hear about the Great Resignation and all you must do to get workers to join and stay at your company. And if it’s all getting you down, it’s getting your employees down, too. So, here’s some good news: You can improve employee well-being by spreading good news.

Yep, it’s as easy as that. Share good news regularly and you can improve employee mood and morale!

At least that’s what Dr. Paola Cecchi-Dimeglio found in her research.

Dr. Cecchi-Dimeglio is the CEO and founder of the decision-making consulting firm People.Culture.Drive. Consulting Group. She’s also the chair of the Executive Leadership Research Initiative for Women and Minority Attorneys (ELRIWMA), a senior research fellow at the Center for the Legal Profession, and affiliated faculty in the Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) of Harvard Kennedy School. 

Improve morale

In her research during the pandemic, she found that in a short time and with little intervention, company leaders can improve employee morale by:

• Starting from the top down. Did you know that humans often copy their leaders’ behaviors? They do. So, if your leaders, supervisors and managers exude a positive demeanor, it’s likely their people will too.  
• Motivate employees to share and read/watch positive news. In one of her experiments, Dr. Cecchi-Dimeglio found that the group of people who got messages from their CEO to watch positive and uplifting video, and partake in a good news company channel, were 18% more optimistic, 32.4% less anxious and 12.2% more like to be grateful for being healthy, than the control group who didn’t.
• Encourage employees to pursue social bonding. Even if it’s a virtual get together, research shows that participating in social activities with co-workers can boost employees’ moods. So now that we’re starting to return to the workplace, you can hold social events virtually or in-person after work.  
• Help employees create start-and-stop work rituals. Employees need to have a healthy balance of work and personal time. With so many still working from home, it’s easy to let that balance slide in favor of the work end. Discourage this and help them create “rituals” to  start and end their workdays.