In a happy place

Wellbeing in the workplace

Happy workers are more productive, have more energy and are more likely to stay in their jobs than unhappy employees. But what makes us happy at work?

Are you and your employees happy at work? If you are, the chances are that you work harder and better than your less happy counterparts. Jessica Pryce-Jones, founder of the iOpener Institute of People and Performance, argues that “people who are happy at work put in far more effort, work longer hours, and are more productive than those who aren’t”. She adds that happy people “remain at their jobs twice as long and they work 25% more time than an unhappy employee works”.

Productivity through happiness

The financial cost of unhappy workers is difficult to estimate, but by taking into account the direct costs of ‘wasted’ wages and recruitment costs, the iOpener Institute calculates that unhappiness costs an organisation of 100 employees over £360,000 a year and an organisation of over 1,000 employees £3.6m a year. An organisation of happy workers, on the other hand, will tend to see less absenteeism, better teamwork and higher performance.

This is not a new idea – the concept of happiness and its links with productivity, performance and effective leadership have been the subject of extensive research for the past few years. One of the problems connected with the theory, though, is that it’s difficult to define happiness, and the things that make us happy at work and elsewhere.

What makes us tick?

The latest research from the Institute is the Global Survey of Happiness at Work, carried out in conjunction with The Wall Street Journal Europe. The survey, which questioned more than 2,000 individuals working in 80 different countries, revealed important findings about the happiness of workers in various sectors, countries and at different levels of management.

In terms of sectors, it’s hardly surprising in the current political and economic climate that finance and accounting saw some of the lowest scores in all five areas. Workers from these two sectors scored below four out of ten for conviction and commitment, which suggests that they don’t believe that their work has a positive impact on the world. Accountants also felt that their jobs weren’t secure in the current climate and, along with other workers in the financial sector, felt that they weren’t able to raise issues at work as freely as employees in other sectors.

The survey analysed the responses of 18 nationalities and found only insignificant differences. But overall the survey found that Germans scored highest in terms of commitment, culture and pride in their organisation.

You can read the full version of this article in issue 24 of Hourglass magazine, which will be published in January 2012.