Only if they’re successful first.

These days, everyone wants to be liked. Whether it’s friends on Facebook, or managers in the workplace, we all want to be, well, just plain happy. (Not a bad goal to have, actually.)It’s not uncommon, then, to see managers going to extremes in an attempt to instill a sense of happiness among their employees. Their rationale seems to be that happy people are more results-driven, and thus more productive.So, what do some managers do? They tend to become overly accommodating, hoping to create a softer, gentler work place, often at the expense of overlooking questionable performance along the way.Results drive happiness (not vice versa)As a manager, your primary objective is to get results from your employees. Results create pride, which builds confidence – and a desire to improve. However, if your goal is to have as many “shiny, happy people” as possible, short-term popularity will go by the wayside as boredom, frustration, and a general lack of drive (and performance) settle in.Want happy employees? Challenge them!A sense of accomplishment is one of the most gratifying sources of happiness. The satisfaction of having achieved a goal (in other words, results) is a sure-fire path to employee happiness. For this to happen, managers must focus their employees on four key areas of the business:Keeping customersGrowing revenuesReducing costsGetting new customersThat’s it. Just those four. Over our 99 years of providing Kansas businesses with human resources, payroll and benefits outsourcing solutions, we’ve found these four areas encompass just about everything. Managers that focus their employees’ efforts in these areas will be well on their way to empowering the team to achieve true results. And, guess what? When that happens, employees get happy!So, managers, you don’t have to cut out the birthday lunches and atta-boys. Focus your employees on the fundamentals. Challenge their thinking. Stretch their minds. The happiness will come – right after the achievements!