Sep-Oct 2024 - Emotions and Performance

Hey everyone,

Now my work travel has settled down (for a bit) I finally got my butt in gear and wrote my first ever newsletter.

I have really wanted to write this for a while to continue the conversation from my book; The Happiness Index: Why Today's Employee Emotions Equal Tomorrow's Business Success on a monthly basis.

I've been delving into the fascinating world of human emotions and how they influence our work and creativity. It's a journey of discovery, and I'm eager to share as I learn.

While emotions are often seen as taboo in the professional sphere, I believe they hold a key to unlocking performance. That's why I'm excited to introduce this newsletter, where I'll be sharing the latest research, evidence, and stories about emotions and their connection to organisational performance.

In the spirit of true inquiry, I'm open to exploring all perspectives, even those that challenge our assumptions. If research reveals that, for example, there's a link between unhappiness and positive work outcomes, I'll be sure to share it to spark discussion. My goal for this newsletter is to remain curious and critical, avoiding confirmation bias as much as possible.

Here is something interesting we learnt from The Happiness Index global data just this week.

The Happiness Index data set

"When considering a company with a similar distribution of employee scores across different criteria, enhancing employee happiness has a greater impact on retention than improving engagement. For a company with 1,000 employees, raising happiness scores by one point results in 9.5 fewer employees leaving annually, compared to 8.6 fewer employees if engagement scores are increased by the same amount"

Source: The Happiness Index

This is a reminder that Employee Engagement and Employee Happiness are different factors and they drive different outcomes. Both factors influence each other but both are different.

Understanding the differences and how they interplay is key.

Here is me talking about the difference;

https://thehappinessindex.com/events-webinars/engagement-and-happiness/

New research:

Here's a glimpse of the external research I've been reading since I got back from summer hols

• Emotional Intelligence and Job Satisfaction: A study from the University Utara Malaysia (https://etd.uum.edu.my/11220/2/S829565_01.pdf) piqued our interest this month. It explores the connection between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction, suggesting that employees with higher emotional intelligence tend to report greater satisfaction in their roles. This could have significant implications for productivity and staff retention. One finding that stood out: "Emotional intelligence may act as a buffer against workplace stressors, enabling employees to navigate challenges with greater resilience and optimism." Stat: The study found that 75% of employees with high emotional intelligence report high job satisfaction. We're curious to see further research in this area.
• The Impact of Positive Emotions on Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Researchers at Universitas Gadjah Mada (https://etd.repository.ugm.ac.id/home/detail_pencarian_downloadfiles/1056231) are investigating how positive emotions like joy, gratitude, and hope might influence workplace culture. Their research suggests that these emotions could encourage employees to go the extra mile, be more helpful, and contribute to a more positive work environment. "Positive emotions may act as a catalyst for organisational citizenship behaviour, creating a ripple effect of goodwill and collaboration," the researchers propose. Stat: Their findings indicate that employees experiencing positive emotions are 20% more likely to engage in helpful behaviours at work. This raises interesting questions about how we can foster positive emotions in the workplace.
• Emotional Labor and Employee Well-being: A thought-provoking study from the European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education (https://eudl.eu/doi/10.4108/eai.16-4-2022.2319704) examines the concept of emotional labour – the effort employees put into managing their emotions to meet workplace expectations. While some level of emotional regulation is expected, the study indicates that excessive emotional labour could be detrimental to employee well-being and contribute to burnout. "Organisations need to be mindful of the emotional demands placed on employees and provide support to mitigate the potential negative impact of emotional labour," the authors suggest. Stat: A significant 40% of employees report experiencing emotional exhaustion due to high levels of emotional labour. This highlights the importance of further research into the impact of emotional labour on employee well-being.

Emotions in the news:

The Harvard Business Review recently published an insightful article titled "When Your Employee Feels Angry, Sad, or Dejected" (https://hbr.org/2024/07/when-your-employee-feels-angry-sad-or-dejected?autocomplete=true). It delves into the ways emotions can affect employee behaviour and performance, offering valuable perspectives for leaders. The article also provides practical strategies for addressing negative emotions in the workplace and creating an environment where employees feel comfortable expressing themselves authentically.

Podcast stuff

My first 100% AI podcast episode is LIVE…??

Scary?

Useful?

Better than my normal episodes?

As an experiment I fed all the publicly available Employee Happiness research papers focused on Performance from the?last 10 years into Google AI.

I then used that AI to turn the findings into a Happiness and Humans podcast episode.The entire process took a few minutes max.

Have a listen and let me know your thoughts...

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3ABQYiUA1FSJDe4fOpELKe

Events

Want to meet up in real life?

There are now only 41 days until our annual Employee Happiness conference. To celebrate my debut newsletter, here is a 30% discount code: MattPhelan.

If you do come please say hello and introduce yourself

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/employee-happiness-annual-conference-tickets-888246929477

Out and about

I finally got to meet Bertie Tonks (FCIPD) last month. He is a senior HR professional I have admired from afar for his straight talking and fantastic hats.

Meeting Bertie in real life did not disappoint and he was very keen share research that

"Emerging neuroscience and psychological evidence suggests a substantial overlap between physical pain and social pain"

Source;

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4869967/

His talk at Jill King 's fantastic Wellbeing masterclass got us all thinking...

Summary:

There is so much still to learn in this space and I am excited to continue this journey of discovery with you, exploring new research and insights into the fascinating connection between our emotions and how we perform at work.

PS

Please let me know your honest feedback on newsletter 1;

What did you like?

What you did not like?

What do you want to see more of?

That way I can keep learning and improving.