I fly home from Whitehorse, Yukon today. Whitehorse is a small airport and you can see the runways from the baggage area - which, according to research would make people unhappy. Arriving in Calgary, it's a five-minute walk to the baggage carousel to wait for another 10 minutes before bags arrive. I hate that wait too. Now, I manage to fly with only carry-on so waiting at the carousel is a thing of the past for me.
People in airports, when forced to wait 15 minutes for their luggage tend to become unahppy. But give those same passengers a 15 minute walk to get their baggage and they are fine with it and much happier.
In essence, when you have time on your hands, you have time to think. Managers need to be very aware of this: the chances that you will be viewed as a bad manager increase substantially if there is not enough work and plenty of time to think. But you also risk looking like a bad boss if you pile the work on too much. You have to strike that balance. (By the way, pointless meetings are "think time" and can be detrimental to how your people view you).
When people have time to think because of boredom, your people don't usually think positively about their workplaces and their jobs. The tendency is to nitpick about little things. Give them time to think and those little things become big things.
Don't be afraid to give your people a little extra work. You need to be more afraid of them not having enough work. You are a better manager building a better Culture if you can find the right balance between not overtaxing your people and keeping them busy.
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