Everywhere you turn these days, you bump into happiness. It’s become quite a trend, from books to magazine surveys to celebrity interviews, and it’s reached the business world. With the release of The Harris Poll's Annual Happiness Index recently and the resulting media and business attention, it seems this cake is now iced! I’m intrigued. As I delve into finding new meaning and resolve in my communication career and as summer truly heats up, I feel this is an important and topic to explore, from personal and professional angles So in the next couple of months, I plan to use the summer “break” to look at happiness – near and long term. Please join me, and let me know which parts resonate with you!
I’ve drawn four major themes from the recent literature: Health and Happiness; Happiness in Relationships, Happiness in the Workplace and Happiness in general. I’ll mix and match and go in between these topics, as they are all interrelated, one directly impacting the other.
Part One - Happiness in the Workplace: Declare Your Independence
As communicators and business people, we know that a happy and engaged workforce is crucial to business outcomes including sales, productivity and impact on health and quality of life. Companies, probably including yours and those of your clients, invest a lot of money in engagement studies, leadership training, and motivational programs to keep their employees happily productive. Sadly, recent research says those efforts probably aren’t working. Shawn Achor (author of The Happiness Advantage and founder of GoodThink, Inc.) in a recent Harvard Business Review article, http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/06/the_happiness_dividend.html cited the Conference Board Survey from this year, which found that employees were the unhappiest they have been in 22 years. Around the same time, CNNMoney reported a survey that indicated 84% of Americans are unhappy with their current job. And earlier this month, Mercer's "What's Working" survey found that one in three US employees are serious about leaving their current jobs.
So it appears that despite best efforts of companies, their employees are struggling to be happy in the workplace. Achor and others suggest that employees stop waiting for companies to get it right, and start claiming happiness for themselves, as individuals. I wholeheartedly support this. I don’t think companies should abandon any of their trainings or surveys-quite the opposite – they should take an even deeper look and find EFFECTIVE methods of dealing with ROOT CAUSES related to employee unhappiness or dissatisfaction. I do think, in addition and simultaneously, all of us as employees can own our work experiences. We can do what we need to be happy each day, each month, each year.
Maybe you’d like to try some of these tips (I’ve adapted from Achor) – and add your own. I plan to try. Let me know how it goes for you!
1. First thing each day, thank someone on your team, your boss, a professional colleague, a mentor with a quick (and heartfelt) thank you email or call.
2. Focus on the positive Write down three new things you are grateful for each day that relate to your work experience. I know – on some days, three will seem an impossible number – keep thinking about it, you’ll find them. Small things count. Even “I’m grateful that the printer is only ten steps from my office” or “I’m glad my boss is on vacation” or “I appreciate the AC being the perfect temperature today…” – you get the idea. It’s about training your brain to focus on what’s good.
So to a degree, you can be independent of what goes on in your company, while you also try to influence the company itself to be more effective when it comes to your happiness and that of your peers. What better time than now to embrace that independence!
Happy holiday weekend, everyone!
Jaya
Happiness is… meeting new colleagues you also count as friends!
