Are you happy or unhappy in the workplace? Does it matter? Does ‘happiness’ make the workforce more productive? Widget Finn faces the facts



Are you happy in your work? Are the people who work with you happy in theirs? If the answer is ‘yes’ then, according to recent research by Hay Group, your workplace will be 4.5 times more productive than those that are stressed and pressurised. Which should make you feel even happier.

Happiness is the new ‘big idea’, although it’s been around for a long time. According to Aristotle “happiness is the meaning and purpose of life”. Now we find happiness — or rather, theories of happiness — everywhere. Academics are researching it, consultants are advising on it, teachers are teaching it. Pupils at private school Wellington College in Berkshire have lessons in how to achieve happiness. The headmaster Anthony Seldon claims: “To me the most important job of any school is to turn out young men and women who are happy and secure.” Though whether parents will be happy that the top priority of a highly expensive education is to turn out their offspring with a smile on their faces rather than robust exam results remains to be seen.

Now politicians have got in on the act. Happiness has been high on the Government’s agenda since April when the Office of National Statistics began its measurement of the happiness and well-being of UK households. Individuals were asked to rate their sense of well-being in relationships, health and job satisfaction. The official index, to be published in 2012, will cost £2m, which may not contribute to the happiness of taxpayers.

But can you measure happiness in the workplace, and does it matter anyway? Defining happiness in a work context is difficult, and often it is confused with well-being, another much discussed concept. Management institute Roffey Park’s 2011 Management Agenda report is titled Well-being — Happy people work for successful organisations and its findings claim a correlation between individual well-being and the financial and strategic success of the organisation they work for.

The Agenda included questions on levels of well-being and happiness, finding that a third of managers were concerned about their general happiness. Jo Hennessy, Roffey Park’s director of research, argues that happiness is ephemeral while well-being is longer-term. “Having a pay rise may make you happy, but then you’ll want a bigger one next year. Our report found that senior managers rated their own well-being higher when their own values were aligned to the organisation, which made them more engaged and this, in turn, increased their sense of happiness.”

Donna Miller, HR director for Europe at Enterprise Rent-a-car, found in a previous job that happiness, well-being and engagement don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. “I was working for a personnel agency, and was really happy at work because I liked the people I worked with, but I hated the job so I wasn’t engaged. Happiness has a place in the workplace, but engagement is very separate. It’s about good relationships with managers, whether you like the job and whether you’re motivated.” She’s planning an employee opinion survey for Enterprise Rent-a-car which will include questions about engagement. “But it will separate out engagement and happiness — you can be very engaged with your job when you fill in the survey and yet be unhappy because of something outside work.”

Carrying out an employee survey is expensive, and unless the findings relate to the bottom line and can be used to increase profits, they are a waste of time and money. Andrew Oswald, professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School, is the unofficial ‘professor of happiness’, having grabbed headlines over two decades ago for his work on happiness, and his recent research explores its links with productivity.

Oswald robustly defends the academic pursuit of happiness. “Measuring happiness is of crucial interest and importance to employers. Our research involved giving one group a clip of a comedy, and comparing their skills at problem-solving tasks with a placebo group and with a third one which had suffered illness or bereavement. The happier people were significantly more productive.”

In another part of the academic jungle Cary Cooper, professor of Organisational Psychology at Lancaster University Management School (LUMS), claims the terms well-being and happiness have been merged by the media — and also, apparently, by his editors. His latest book is titled Well-being — Productivity and Happiness at Work. Professor Cooper claims high levels of psychological well-being among employees translates into good news for the organisation, including lower sickness-absence levels, attraction and retention of talented people, and more satisfied customers, clients or service users. “People with higher levels of psychological well-being work better, live longer and have happier lives.”

But where’s the proof? Performance consultancy Towers Watson carried out an employee engagement survey in a high street bank. “Typically, we found that where the average level of engagement was higher, the average performance was higher,” says director Dr Stephen Young. “We found that employee engagement varied by branch from a low of 37 per cent to a high of 80 per cent. The most engaged branches beat their targets by an average of 17 per cent while the least engaged only just met their targets.”

According to the Towers Watson calculations, every 10 percentage increase in engagement equalled four per cent of additional sales. “In a typical UK high street bank this would result in an additional £150m in sales,” claims Young.

Sounds impressive, but how does an organisation set about improving a situation where employees are dissatisfied and unhappy? In 2007, Merseyside Police called in consultants Robertson Cooper to carry out a force-wide audit of well-being and engagement. The audit found that the main barriers to well-being were high levels of overload, poor physical health, worrying levels of workplace bullying, low levels of productivity and a considerable gap between the commitment of the staff towards the force and their perception of how the force felt towards them (see TER Vol:1.4, p58).

Faced with this devastating report, Merseyside Police developed a strategy to improve well-being throughout the force, with the support of the top leadership team and representation from the Police Federation on the steering group. They created a strong well-being brand which was used to promote all the work in the area of well-being and engagement.

“Consistent branding and communication helped staff to associate all initiatives with an improvement in their own working lives,” explains Gordon Tinline, director at Robertson Cooper.

Initiatives were launched to tackle the issues of physical health including a Cycle to Work Scheme and ‘Lose 1 million pounds’. A ‘Switch off your mobile phone’ scheme was introduced to reduce work overload.

Two years after the initial survey, Merseyside Police carried out a repeat audit to measure the impact of the well-being strategy so far. All the measures of well-being had improved, including a six per cent increase in the number of staff who were working at 80 per cent productivity or above. It also identified a positive impact on sickness absence, with the lowest levels recorded at three per cent.

Simon Lutterbie, director of research for The iOpener Institute for People and Performance is a strong advocate for measuring the happiness of employees. He sees happiness as a strategic issue for organisations. “Organisations who don’t have a happy workforce are in a bad way.” The iOpener Institute, which has developed tools to measure the happiness of employees, did a survey of nearly 6,000 employees, comparing the happiest employees with their least happy colleagues. The research found the happiest employees put in 2.5 days more in terms of effort and tended to stay twice as long in their jobs.

Surveying 6,000 employees is a large task, but sometimes organisations find the simplest approach is the most effective way of getting the information they are looking for. US-based social media agency Nixon MacInnes installed a cheap and easy way of measuring their staff’s happiness level. Despite having software developers on their team, they went for a low-tech solution using two buckets and some tennis balls. At the end of each day every team member drops a tennis ball into either the happy or unhappy bucket. The next day they count the balls and by the end of the week they compile their own Happiness Index.

But is a state of maximum happiness what all organisations should be aspiring to? “Absolutely not,” says Dr Ben Hardy, research associate at Cambridge Judge Business School. He is cynical about the happiness business. “People seem to be buying into the concept that everyone should be as happy as possible but they haven’t thought it through. There’s the assumption that happy is good, sad is bad. But lots of things are done because someone is dissatisfied with their present state — they move jobs, get out of a bad partnership, found a charity. A completely happy workforce becomes complacent and lacks that edginess which inspires innovation.”

After all, if James Dyson had been happy in his work the world might never have seen his revolutionary vacuum cleaner. And maybe positioning happiness as the ultimate goal for a perfect workplace gives the wrong message to people entering the world of work for the first time. A lot of work is hard and challenging, so the idea everything at work should be happy is setting them up for unrealistic expectations.

Perry Timms, head of talent at The Big Lottery Trust, agrees that a Pollyanna culture doesn’t encourage creativity. “Sometimes people need something that brings a sharp intake of breath, but to turn the situation to an advantage you need to have strong communication and senior managers who are visible and approachable.” His organisation, like many others, has faced change and turbulent times (for case study, see page 38). Originally under the wing of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, it was moved to the Cabinet Office. “We were honest about the significant changes involved, but we sent out strong messages to staff and kept them informed. We take the temperature of the workplace by regularly surveying employees though we don’t specifically measure happiness and well-being.”

Managers should be the first line of defence in anticipating problems that result in loss of well-being and unhappiness argues Cary Cooper. “I like pressure, it’s stimulating but there is a thin line between pressure and stress, which is different for each of us depending on our coping strategies. A good line manager will notice changes in an individual’s behaviour and spot the first sign that someone has crossed the line between pressure and stress.”

Professor Cooper makes a case for training managers in personal and social skills. “Even business schools, who are training the leaders of tomorrow, admit they don’t focus on these essential skills. For happier working environments first we need managers who manage by praise and reward — just saying ‘thank you’ and ‘well done’ makes a difference. Second, people should have control over their work — so no micro-management. Third, there needs to be appropriate flexible working arrangements people can take up without being made to feel guilty. Fourth, there should be manageable workloads and achievable deadlines. Finally, there should be a culture where employees feel valued and trusted.”

Given these factors, where does happiness hit the bottom line? Henry Stewart founded the London-based IT training company Happy Computers in 1990. In recent years it has won a raft of accolades, including the Top Workplace for Well-being in the 2009 Great Place to Work awards. With a turnover of £2.2m Stewart claims the memorable name contributed to the company’s success. “It established the brand and everyone has to live up to it. You can’t answer the phone at Happy Computers with a miserable voice.”

Stewart seems to have found the magic formula. Call your business Happy, and it spreads the feel-good factor around to staff, clients and customers, which increases the profits — then everyone’s happy.