The Pursuit of Happiness at Work

I woke up every morning with the zeal to reach office, sharp on time. It was joyful to be at work everyday, meeting colleagues who smiled and made my day beautiful.

What drove me and others was the ‘fun’ culture, essentially initiated and implemented by HR. Happiness, generated with special and little efforts trickled down to individuals in the form of a morale boost and enhanced productivity at work.

Pondering over these HR initiatives I realized the world has moved far beyond the discussions of Intelligence Quotient to that of Happiness Quotient, which takes into account the contribution of happiness in an individual’s life. Jessica Pryce-Jones, author of Happiness at Work and CEO of iOpener, says “Happiness at work is closely correlated with greater performance and productivity as well as greater energy, better reviews, faster promotion, higher income, better health and increased happiness with life. So it’s good for organizations and individuals, too.”

Happiness is a state of emotional health in which a person is in control over his thoughts and emotions and well adapted to the environment. Happiness Quotient (HQ) is the measure of physical, emotional and spiritual well being of an individual. According to a recent Gallop study, just 13 per cent of the world’s individuals are happy and engaged at work. Happy individuals will always do more than what is expected. They can generate new ideas at leisure or over a cup of coffee. This reminds me of the tagline from Café Coffee day ‘A lot can happen over coffee’.

I read somewhere that positive emotions drive people and people drive performance. With this mantra, organizations today are scaling newer heights. HR can now focus on ‘happiness’ of an individual by building activities around physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual well being.

South West Airlines is the 3rd largest airline in the world. Its record of 40 consecutive years of profitability is based on the philosophy “Your individuals come first.  If your individuals are satisfied and happy and inspired by what they are doing, then they make your customers happy and they come back.”  A philosophy like this finds validation in hard times and South West was notable for being the only US airline not to lay off staff after 9/11. They sold off planes instead (www.happy.co.uk).

Danish toy maker Lego had set itself the target of being one of the top 3 workplaces in Europe by 2015.Their first step to making their people happy? “Stop doing the things that make them unhappy.

The benefits of creating a happier workforce are immense for an organization:

Happiness generates a lot of positive energy and helps in eliminating hidden negative energy at a workplace. A high energy workplace can be achieved by organizing a lot of activities like birthday bashes, festivals from the yearly calendar, team – building games, reward and recognition. In addition to that, factors like belongingness, trust, respect and communication between the organization and the individual contribute to enhancing happiness at a workplace.

Happiness is a pursuit, those who enjoy the journey of finding happiness are always more efficient and determined towards work, than the ones who approach this journey with pessimism, thus unhappy and disengaged. Happiness eludes us all the time, but in today’s work scenario, the organization and the HR play an important role in creating an irresistible happy culture that individuals look forward to being a part of. Happiness is contagious! One happy individual makes several happy and thus enhances the happiness quotient of an organization.