Who's really responsible for "happiness at work"

Happiness at work is a really tricky concept. You’ve probably seen the engagement numbers globally; they are usually somewhere around 31-40 percent at most in terms of “engaged,” i.e. potentially happy, employees. That’s a terrible score. If you showed your mom a test back in the day and you got a 31, she wouldn’t be too happy. And yet, this score is actually getting worse as the years go by. So in general, it seems like people aren’t happy at work. You’ve probably had some jobs you like and some you hate; I’d say that’s the norm for most human beings. But have you consistently been happy in jobs? Probably not. And while we have boatloads of research on what supposedly makes people happy at work, I’m not really sure anyone truly understands the whole concept that well.

Here’s an aspect of it I find interesting: all these discussions about employee engagement or being happy at work, right are rooted in what the employer is supposed to do. What about the employee? We all know the Silicon Valley culture of waffle stations and kegerators, and that’s all great on the employer side. But what do we expect from the employee in the context of creating great, engaged, happy workplaces?

I tried to break this between employee and employer responsiblity.

On the employer side, I think there are three major expectations:

• Tone
• Opportunity
• Intent

Let’s go through these quickly.

Tone: I think this is the word people would commonly call “culture.” Basically, it’s what a place is really like. How do people treat each other? What is collaboration like? Is there a lot of undercutting? This is the stuff where, in the job interview, HR tells you everything is perfect. Three weeks into the job, you’re crying on the way home. That’s the tone. That’s set by the senior leaders, commonly. If they are revenue hounds and nothing else, it’s probably not the environment for everyone.

Opportunity: Internal recruitment (i.e. promotion) numbers in North America are not great of late, and I think the biggest reason is that whole social media deal: FOMO. People are afraid of missing out on some great external candidate -- maybe from a rival -- so they end up stiffing their own people. When you don’t provide opportunity and growth concepts for humans, it’s a bad place to work. This part is the employer responsibility.

Intent: This is about “saying and doing” the same thing. Here’s an example. My friend worked for a CMO who constantly talked about digital in meetings and interviews. She knew nothing about digital and couldn’t care less, but knew it was a good thing to say. In execution, the company did nothing digitally. So they were saying it, but not doing it. What do you think was the turnover on the 12-15 digital employees? I’ll tell you: 80 percent. Employer needs to align “this is the message we churn out” with “this is what we actually care about.”

On the employee side, the three factors I came to were:

• Values
• Career
• Choice

Values: I’d define values as “work ethic,” or a personal coda of wanting to do quality jobs. You should bring that every day, even if your boss is barely acknowledging your existence.

Career: “Career” means you have some idea of next steps or goals and you want to push towards that. I don’t care if it’s “more money” or “this specific job title” or “a nice house in Half Moon Bay.” All are reasonable. Most career arcs have peaks and valleys, yes, but ultimately a lot of how a person builds a career is up to that person. As an employee, you have the responsibility every day/week/month of coming in and working hard (work ethic) and trying to find opportunities to shape your career.

Choice: Choice means exactly what it usually means: if you hate the job/boss, leave. But if you stay, that’s a choice too. Exercise your choices and understand the choices you’re making. When people stay in a job six years and whine about it 42 times/day, that’s a choice too. You have a responsibility to understand the power of your choices.

There’s tons more on both sides (employer/employee) but I thought this was a good start. What do you think about happiness at work and all of us, employee and employer, can push towards it?