As the boss in your office, it’s part of your responsibility to mind your employees’ well-being. To properly do their job and make a significant contribution to the company, it’s crucial for them to be happy and content. Positive reinforcement and expressions of appreciation help with that. Team-building activities and company outings urge them to enjoy some playtime with their co-workers. But another effective way of making sure that your employees are happy is by encouraging them to pursue their passion projects in their free time.
Do they like writing poetry and fiction? Tell them to keep on writing and submit to publishers and websites. Do they love classical music? Tell them to learn how to play by taking lessons from a piano teacher.
Your company can benefit from encouraging your employees to pursue their passion projects. Here’s how.
An Increase in Employees’ Motivation to Work
Loss of motivation to work is a problem that all employees face in one way or another. When their jobs become a bit monotonous, they lose interest in it. Other times, they don’t feel confident enough to do their jobs. Sometimes, they just need a win.
The solution to that is encouraging them to find something that they’re interested in. This energizes them. It gives them more reasons to get up in the morning. And what’s great is that their passion projects will lead to desirable results–simply because they’re passionate about them.
This drive to accomplish something will influence how they work in your company. They’ll be more in tune with their work and purpose to your company. They’ll be more excited to accomplish things.
An Improvement in your Employees’ Characters and Camaraderie
By pursuing their passion projects, your employees would also be happier. They’d enjoy the sense of accomplishment and that, in turn, would bring joy to them. And a happy set of employees will always lead to positive results in your company.
If your employees are happy with their lives, they would be more inclined to help their co-workers with their tasks. They would be more immune to the stress and anxiety that their work might cause. They would take in stride crunch time with their projects and difficult and demanding clients.
Their positive energy around the office would also improve their camaraderie with their co-workers. They could cultivate a culture where people are eager to help and motivate each other to accomplish their work.
A Significant Contribution to the Company
When your employees are pursuing their passion projects, they’re gaining new skills and cultivating innovative ideas are entirely self-motivated. You might think that there’s no way your employee learning how to play the piano can benefit your software development company. But you’ll never really know. Because of your employees’ passion for music, it might encourage them to create an app that would help other people in the world learn how to play the piano.
Google is one of the leading companies in the world that cultivated their employees’ passion projects. Gmail, one of Google’s most popular and utilized creations, started out as a passion project. Paul Buchheit, Google’s 23rd employee, developed this app way before the company even considered creating an email platform for people all over the world.
Employees won’t be of much use to the company if they’re unmotivated and unproductive. But it’s probably because they’re unhappy and burnt out. To help them get over this hump, you can encourage them to pursue their passion projects. It would reignite their creative and innovative side. It would give them a sense of fulfillment. And those results would help them become more inspired to do their work. Essentially, they would become better employees.
