#HR #RRHH Making love and making personal #branding #leadership

Working from home is everyone's dream, right? If that's true, then why did 60 percent of the employees who participated in a Stanford University work-from-home experiment opt to go back to corporate HQ?

The 2013 study offered a sampling of employees in the air travel and hotel booking industry an opportunity to work from home for nine months. Surprisingly, many of them had a very lonely experience. After only a few months, 50 percent of the volunteers and 10 percent of the non-volunteer group asked to return to their cubicles.

Loneliness and lack of social interaction were cited as the No. 1 reason for abandoning home offices, but these aren't the only drawbacks. How can you have your cake and eat it, too? Because I've successfully worked from home for nearly 16 years, I consider myself an expert on the topic.

If you're on the hunt for a new position that will let you shine, practice demonstrating these top seven traits that CEOs look for in star employees.

Your resume can get you the interview. But these traits can get you hired:

1. Happiness

No one wants to work with an unhappy person. Negativity, unnecessary drama, and melancholy attitudes can bring the entire company down, so although your own personal happiness may not seem important when applying for a job, it most certainly is. Happiness also reflects your ability to tackle challenges without becoming discouraged. If you show the hiring CEO that you're a positive, mentally healthy person, your chances of becoming the company's next star employee will vastly improve.

Study, work hard, and you will be successful.

This was the mantra repeated by educators throughout my youth. None of them added "be happy" to the success equation.

But a growing body of research in positive psychology and neuroscience is demonstrating that happiness is the secret ingredient to success. It turns out, our brains are more engaged, creative, productive, and resilient when in a positive state.

All this unhappiness comes with a high price tag to businesses, costing more than $550 billion a year in lost productivity. In his book, Donovan identifies 60 simple steps individuals can take to improve their happiness and get back on the path to success. Here are six of the top things happy workers do:

A few weeks ago, we talked about why happiness at work matters; this week I'd like to share the flip side of that: the gigantic cost of unhappy employees.

Employee engagement has been a hot topic for several years now, but what does it really mean and how do you know if your employees are engaged at work? And why does it matter?

Gallup's State of the Global Workplace reported on employee engagement in more than 140 countries and divided employees into 3 categories:

In a recent episode of the new ABC drama Mind Games, one of the characters mentions an interesting personality trait that defines the most popular people: They more readily admit their weaknesses rather than waiting for them to be revealed over time. The show is about using cunning tricks to manipulate others and ensure a positive outcome, so it's a bit ridiculous, but there's truth in the observation.

In the office, it's possible to exhibit traits that help you to be more likable. In my years as a corporate manager and developing my writing career, I've noticed when people appear more likable, and I've tried to develop these traits myself. Here are a few to cultivate.