View of a young smiling man wearing thick-rimmed glasses looking at his co-worker.
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Do you want to be happier at work? These tips can help

29 Mar 2019

If you’re unhappy in your job, this guide may help you change your circumstances enough to make your situation work better for you.

Whether we like it or not, we probably spend more time working than we do doing anything else. Hence when you have issues in the workplace, the resulting exasperation can quickly bleed into all other areas of your life.

So, being happy at work is pretty important. However, ensuring you’re satisfied in the workplace is a complicated affair.

It’s true that unhappiness is often tied to conditions and can be, therefore, often be outside of an employee’s control. That doesn’t mean you can’t take decisive action to improve your own circumstances.

Remaining happy in your role goes far beyond salary. Though being unfairly compensated will sour even the best of professional situations, even well-paid people can still find themselves dissatisfied with their position.

That said, research from Accenture has found that being underpaid is one of the most significant complaints employees report. If you are unhappy with your compensation, you should ask for a raise. Daunting a task as that may sound, you can alleviate the understandable jitters you may have by taking some simple steps to prepare yourself.

You should conduct some research into the type of salary you could command for a similar role on sites such as Glassdoor on LinkedIn. Knowing your worth will guide you towards the best increase to propose and will help shore up your confidence, too.

You should also collect information about targets that you have met and highlights of your career performance over the last few months so you can further demonstrate your worth to the company. Armed with this knowledge, you should be in an excellent position to ask for the raise you so deserve.

Even if your problems aren’t monetary, there are still changes you can make in your workplace, and one of them is better understanding and managing the expectations your workplace has on you. Lack of clarity can cause anxiety to fester. If you know what your exact responsibilities are, it’s easier to assess where your performance is currently at.

For more advice on how to be happier at work, check out the infographic below brought to you by NetCredit.

happier at work infographic

Infographic: NetCredit

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Eva Short
By Eva Short

Eva Short was a journalist at Silicon Republic, specialising in the areas of tech, data privacy, business, cybersecurity, AI, automation and future of work, among others.

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