Marieke Vervoort-Kersten is Talent Development Coach and Personal Coach. With her, making the most of your strong side is central. She is continuously engaged in the personal development of professionals, discovering and using their potential and improving interpersonal communication. Ultimately, this leads to employees who function more effectively in the workplace. Coaching on strengths instead of complaints. But how do you actually do this? And how does this affect someone's job happiness? We talked about it with Marieke.
"In my coaching I focus on how people can function optimally. I do this by focusing, together with my coachees, on what is present in them rather than what is not," Marieke says. "The magnifying glass is put on everyone's personal qualities and the effect of his/her actions and behavior on others and themselves." Marieke believes that organizations are better off investing in the development and deployment of employees' strengths, rather than having them toil on their shortcomings.
Work happiness is inextricably linked to everything Marieke does throughout the day. For her, happiness at work means that you can do what you are good at, that you enjoy it immensely and are therefore of value to others. Having nice people around you and a pleasant working environment also contribute to happiness at work. For Marieke, happiness at work also means that you can make your own decisions and organize your work your way to deliver quality work. "Your values are an important recipe for work happiness. They work as a compass, give you direction and are a handhold when making decisions."
"When people have confidence in their own abilities, they feel more powerful and their actions become more effective." Marieke therefore always works first on awareness of the core qualities of her coachees and awareness of themselves; who are you, what can you do, what do you want, who are you in relation to others and in relation to your work, what is the effect on your actions and behavior on others, but also on yourself? "With this insight, you already have a lot of wisdom and power. The moment you have developed self-knowledge and can see yourself 'from a distance,' so to speak, you can see how to address issues. Then you figure out how to use your strong side optimally." Together with coachees, Marieke discusses what they want to achieve in the short and/or long term, what they already have in place to achieve it and how they can face possible emerging obstacles.
In Marieke's opinion, what makes someone happy at work is a sum of several factors. "Doing what you are good at is definitely one of them!" In addition, autonomy, social contact, feeling in control of your career and having perspective is very important, according to Marieke. "All of that starts with feeling responsible for your own career. You may not always be able to create perspective yourself or completely change course, but you can always start by focusing on the things you can influence. Research what your strengths are and develop them, that's guaranteed to pay off!"
We asked Marieke if work happiness is in your own hands. "To a certain extent I think so. You are responsible for your own (working) life, but that is not always easy. For example, are you stuck in a golden cage (well-paid job) that makes you unhappy, but you also have a mortgage and a family to support. Then it is undoubtedly not given to you to quit your job tomorrow." So what can you do? Marieke's advice: "Start working on yourself first! Research where your qualities lie, develop them, and then see where your interests and opportunities lie. Take control! It may require one or more intermediate steps, or maybe even a temporary step back, but you can always make steps. It's a cliché, but a few small steps make a big step in the end." An example: Look at your working life with the end in mind. How would you like to look back on this life? What did you accomplish? Who were you as a person? What (mini) step can you take right now to achieve that?
It is also important to realize, according to Marieke, that you can work on yourself outside of office hours. "Do this exercise instead of spending an evening watching TV: Think back to the situations you enjoy looking back on or are proud of. Describe what you did in those situations and what core quality of yours emerged then. In this way, you will already get a sense of some of your core qualities."
Others can also affect one's job happiness. "Start by being lenient with each other. Don't be so hard on each other and try to be more understanding of the other person. We are all different, embrace the differences in the workplace. In addition, you can learn a lot about yourself from another person. For example, how you react to another person says as much about yourself as it does about the other person. By learning from others, by looking at yourself in a different way, you can come to insights that lead to awareness and possibly to a positive change in yourself. But of course you have to be open to that," says Marieke.
Marieke does have an impact on the work happiness of her coachees. By working with them on becoming aware of their core qualities, by focusing on their strengths, positive feelings are evoked. These feelings make people more creative, help them learn faster and easier, promote cognitive performance and increase resilience. Marieke: "These are therefore important ingredients for job happiness." Also, people trust Marieke. A coaching session is a safe place to vent. Difficult, annoying and/or challenging situations are viewed through a different lens, which can prevent negativity, cynicism or gossiping in the workplace, for example.
Marieke's advice: "Stop 'repair thinking'! You hire people for their strengths, so why focus on their weaknesses? That works neither motivating nor inspiring. Support people in discovering and developing their qualities. Facilitate that at least 80% of their work matches these and together choose a strategy for weaknesses. Pay attention to improving interpersonal communication. Grant this to your employees and facilitate it. It's a win-win!"
Work happiness, a hot-topic lately. But what factors actually contribute more to work happiness? And does work happiness have to do with the opportunity to grow and develop? And how do you, as management, make your employees aware of these development opportunities? Is work happiness perhaps even a new business model? And if it were a business model, should it also be measurable? This and much more about happiness at work can be found in our happiness at work magazine. You can download it here .