by Ed Diener
Do happy workers actually perform better? Could it be a bit of positivity really translates to a more efficient, more productive employee? Research shows that both supervisors and customers think so. In one study, supervisor evaluations of workers who had taken a happiness survey several years earlier were obtained. The employees' levels of happiness and unhappiness at the earlier time predicted how well the supervisor evaluated their work, suggesting that positivity on the job gets you a positive nod from the boss. In other studies conducted with both master's of business administration students and corporate employees, it was found that happy students and happy workers were more effective decision makers, received better performance evaluations from teachers and management, and ended up with more pay raises.
Happiness also translates into more creativity at work. Happy workers are better at producing fresh ideas for changing products and services, as well as suggesting clever new procedures that allow their organizations to achieve important goals. One research team studied individuals who were working in seven companies that represented several industries, including high tech and consumer products. These people's jobs included creating new home healthcare products and developing new tracking systems for merchandise sales. In other words, creativity was very important to job success for this group. The researchers asked the participants to keep a diary of daily events, and obtained measures of their emotions as well.
Employees whose diaries included many positive words and those people who scored highly on measures of happiness were scored as highly creative by other team members. The daily diaries also showed that the workers were most creative on their happier days. Creativity has long been linked to happiness because a good mood facilitates broader thinking and the more original thoughts that are fundamental to coming up with new ideas. Laboratory researchers have coaxed people into a good mood and seen that they produce more ideas, and more divergent ideas. The same holds true on the job. Thus, when creativity is needed, happy workers are likely to excel. Google and other information technology companies have been successful, in part, because they build in unstructured time for their employees to play and experiment. It is not too far a stretch to imagine that the happiest workers at these companies will also be the most creative.
Another benefit of happy workers is that they tend to stay in the same job and are far less likely to quit and search for work elsewhere. Because happy workers are more likely to enjoy their jobs and their co-workers, they are less likely to grow discontented and start a job search. Hiring and training new employees is very expensive for companies, and fresh hires tend to be less knowledgeable than workers who have been on the job awhile. Replacing an executive, for instance, can set a company back more than a million dollars. In other words, employee happiness can save companies a lot of money.
One place where researchers have found strong benefits of happiness on the job is in the area of organizational citizenship. Organizational citizenship behaviors are the tasks workers engage in that help the business and co-workers, but which are not formal duties of their job. These include lending a helping hand to co-workers, promoting the organization, and noticing where improvements can be made. Workers who are low in organizational citizenship are more likely to take unnecessary sick days or steal from the workplace. Happy workers are substantially better organizational citizens. They show up to work on time, take fewer sick days, help colleagues, and generally get along better with co-workers and supervisors. Although work satisfaction has a modest effect on productivity, the strong benefits of well-being on organizational citizenship translate to money saved and money earned for businesses. And the small to moderate effects of work happiness on productivity and retention yield an additional competitive edge.
Part of whether you enjoy your job is the attitude you take to it. If you see it as a hardship that must be endured, it will feel that way all day long. If you decide that work is an opportunity to develop your talents, help others, and improve the world, it is more likely to become enjoyable, and you will do those little extra things that make you a better employee. However, your approach to your job is only half the puzzle; some workplaces are better than others.
Best Places to Work
Both of the authors of this book have given talks at conferences hosted by the Gallup Organization, the business that is famous for its national and international polls. When we want to know people's attitudes, Gallup is a Mercedes. We have visited Gallup's headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska, and spent time in their beautiful Washington, DC, building. During our visits, we have had the opportunity to speak with many company employees, and have had candid conversations with them about their work environment. We have been amazed at how enthusiastic most of them are about their jobs. We have heard data analysts brag about how rewarding their work is, secretaries claim to never want to work anywhere else, and administrators talk about a sense of having a worthwhile mission in life. What makes these workers so fond of their jobs when employees at other companies are often complaining around the watercooler every day? The short answer is that Gallup is a good place to work.
Jobs are not just about the specific tasks assigned to us - teaching students, pumping gas, writing reports, making computer chips - they are also about our relationships with our supervisors and co-workers, our commutes, and company policies. Each of these bears directly on your satisfaction with your job and, indirectly, your overall happiness. Good workplaces are those that have policies in place that benefit both the workers and the company, and have mechanisms in place for dealing with internal problems as they arise. Companies like Gallup have policies in place that keep workers happy and save money by reducing turnover. For instance, Gallup has a company policy of focusing on employee strengths. In fact, new hires are given the inhouse StrengthsFinder, a measure developed to identify and capitalize on the resources each person brings to his or her work. At the most fundamental level, Gallup management really believes in its workers, so much so that the company is employee owned, the cafeteria is subsidized, the offices are of equal size, the CEO - Jim Clifton - is approachable, and there is no official sick-time policy; workers are expected to take time off as needed. The result is a staff of committed individuals who enjoy their work, make friends at the office, and stay loyal to the company.
Gallup is, of course, a radical departure from the old school of business management, in which workers were viewed as adversaries. Once, many supervisors saw their employees as an obstacle to company growth and profit. Workers, according to the old wisdom, were people who wanted to make a lot of money without having to work particularly hard, and who could not be completely trusted. Workers were seen as lazy, wanting only to goof around if given a chance. The thinking was, if you check on people a lot and give them enough performance incentives, you can usually get them to work hard. The new idea is that if you win people over and make them enthusiastic about their work, seeing it as a personal challenge, you can harness their full energies, beyond the mandatory job requirements. Unfortunately, too many businesses still follow the old-school model.
The specific employee policies of the Gallup Organization may not work with every type and size of business. Still, research shows that there are general indicators of good workplaces. Peter Warr, an organizational psychologist, studies the satisfaction of individual employees and describes the work environment that inspires employees. He has identified the following factors as important to job satisfaction.
Opportunities for Personal Control
We have all experienced the frustration of absurd company policies and demanding bosses. The hilarious movie Office Space and the popular comic strip Dilbert both point out the many instances in which bureaucracy runs rampant and workers feel pinned down by rules that don't make sense, or that interfere with the job. For example, policies that require unneeded paperwork only slow up the work process. The feelings of frustration that accompany oppressive rules lead to more than just griping employees. Research shows that workers wh
o do not feel they have any control over their jobs suffer more health problems than workers who have some control. Having control over your job means having some discretion in how to best tackle problems, apply skills, and envision outcomes. This flexibility is key to making work feel less routine and the job more rewarding. Although some standardization is needed in all organizations, giving workers some opportunities for personal control over their job will make them more involved with it.
Jobs with a Variety of Tasks
Good workplaces are businesses where workers can engage in a variety of tasks. Offices that allow team members to give presentations, write reports, make sales, participate in meetings, and conduct research are more likely to have employees who feel engaged rather than bored. We once toured a tomato-processing plant where lines of workers stood beside flumes and pulled out stray vines and leaves from the waves of fruit that floated before them. It is hard to imagine a more boring job than long hours of bending over and pulling stems off. The tedium can be alleviated by listening to music or talking to co-workers while doing the job, or by rotating through several different jobs during the course of a day.
Contrast line work with that of a municipal police officer. Cops tend to perform a wide variety of duties, including patrolling the city, attending briefings, giving school presentations, making arrests, processing suspects, working with concerned citizens, and appearing in court. Too much time spent pursuing and arresting criminals might be physically and emotionally taxing, whereas too much time spent completing paperwork might be too routine and frustrating. Instead, police officers can benefit from the variety of tasks. Fortunately, more and more of the truly repetitive work tasks are being done by computers, leaving the remaining jobs with more varied activities.
Supportive Supervisors
The television show The Office is a comedy about a small-minded boss who steps all over his workers' rights and emotions in his attempts to be liked by both his staff and the more senior executives. He makes inappropriate jokes, meddles in workers' personal lives, holds ineffectual training sessions, showboats, and interferes just when everything is running smoothly. You may have had a supervisor like this, or know someone who has. Overbearing, closed-minded, or aggressive bosses have a way of sucking enjoyment out of the workday. Good supervisors, on the other hand, are approachable, show interest in their employees, and encourage worker development.
The best managers know just how much freedom to give their workers, and just when to look over their shoulders. They are quick to praise a job well done, but also give periodic feedback about where employees can improve. In fact, good supervisors are interested in continuing employee development and are eager to provide the tools and training necessary to help them do their work better. Perhaps the best aspect of working under a supportive supervisor is that staff members feel relaxed and comfortable, and this allows them to go about their jobs more efficiently. A supervisor who cares about his or her employees and gives them performance feedback is one of the most important resources an organization can have.
Respect and Status
Jobs and workplaces that afford people respect and status are likely to engender feelings of competence and pride. To some extent, this is why being a doctor or judge is appealing. Not only can the work itself be rewarding, but it can also boost a person's self-esteem because these jobs are so highly respected. In short, they are jobs about which people can feel proud. The respect that is inherent in some highstatus jobs, however, can be extended to all jobs, even lower status ones, in the best organizations. When customers, co-workers, and management treat you well, it is likely that you feel your work is worthwhile. Good workplaces are those that have opportunities for respect and status built into all jobs.
Perhaps the classic example of respect for workers is the popular employee of the month program. Although being recognized in this way often consists of nothing more than receiving a certificate, having your name engraved on a plaque, or having your photograph posted near the cash register, these programs are nevertheless often effective. Employees whose contributions are recognized report feeling proud of their accomplishments and more enthusiastic about their jobs. The most important aspect of feeling like you receive respect on the job is interpersonal contact. Positive feedback from your boss, praise from a customer, and the respect of co-workers can go a long way toward creating a happy worker. In fact, experts at the Gallup Organization suggest that people need to have good friends at work, colleagues whose opinions, support, and praise they trust and value.
Good Pay and Fringe Benefits
To report on the difficulties of living on a small wage, the writer Barbara Ehrenreich took a number of low-paying jobs, such as working as a waitress and as a clerk at Wal-Mart. In her book Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich writes about these experiences and comes to the conclusion that it is difficult to eke out a living at minimum wage. Some people, for example, spend almost as much money on dressing for, getting to, and eating at work as they bring in from their jobs. For most of us, work is - at least in part - about making money above and beyond job-related expenses. Regardless of their social class, people need to pay for food, clothes, insurance, transportation, rent or mortgage, childcare, medical services, recreation, and many other common expenses.
There is no getting around it: good workplaces pay their employees a decent wage. This does not mean, of course, that everyone will earn the enormous sums commanded by professional athletes and stars of the silver screen. But it does mean that folks ought to receive a fair wage, one that provides them with the means to afford adequate room and board. Compensation also extends to benefits, ranging from health insurance, to retirement savings, to holiday parties, to maternity leave. The more of these benefits employees receive, the further their pay-check will stretch. But employees have a responsibility in all this too - and that is to develop skills, workplace experience, and productive habits so that their employers can justify paying them a salary well above minimum wage.
Some employers think that take-home pay and benefits are all that workers care about. The truth is, while all workers are concerned with their compensation and prefer to make more than less, healthy paychecks and robust retirement plans by themselves will not produce a happy workforce. Many employees, especially those in typical middle-class jobs, care about an additional thousand dollars much less than they want their work to be challenging, meaningful, and collegial. Even with average pay and benefits, workers may be very happy with their jobs if the other factors are in place.
Clear Requirements and Information on How to Meet Them
When Rebecca graduated from college, she obtained employment as a geologist for a large petroleum company in Houston. The company offered her a handsome paycheck, paid training, the opportunity to travel the world, and an unbelievable benefits package. Rebecca jumped at the job offer and moved to Texas, where she promptly fell into a deep depression. At first, it was difficult for her to identify what was wrong. Her supervisor treated her well, she got along with the people in her work group, she liked her new apartment, and she enjoyed her new city as well. Despite these favorable conditions, Rebecca floundered between 9 in the morning and 6 in the evening. She began dreading going into the office.
It turns out that there were no specific expectations for what Rebecca was supposed to do, how she was supposed to learn it, or a timeline by which to accomplish tasks. She was asked to "shadow" a co-worker, but was unsure of what she was supposed to be learning. When she inquired of her supervisor, he attempted to reassure her by saying, "Don't worry, it will take as long as it will take for you to learn the ropes." Ironically, this panicked Rebecca even more. What Rebecca wanted was a clear set of instructions and the opportunity to complete discrete tasks in a given time.
In fact, clear expectations as well as a solid understanding of how and when to meet them is what we all need. Happiness-promoting workplaces are those that have policies and supervisors in place that facilitate this process. C
ompanies with clear job descriptions, sensible training, and easy-to-understand measures for success are more likely to produce and retain satisfied employees. Businesses with an overly loose structure and too much flexibility in deadlines are often more likely to produce anxiety for workers, and be less successful in general.
There is little that is as stressful at work as being given too much responsibility, or being assigned a task you do not know how to complete. At the Gallup Organization, the management wants to make certain that workers are placed in positions where they can use their best strengths on the job. The hiring process includes interviews and assessments aimed at identifying the right match for workers and the tasks they will perform. Some companies, by contrast, view employees as essentially interchangeable, and ask their workers to bounce from job to job and office to office. But by viewing employees as individuals and recognizing unique talents, as Gallup does, businesses pave the way for workers to feel good about their accomplishments and enjoy their specific jobs.
Consider your own work environment, and ask yourself when, over the past year, you had the chance to shine on the job. When were you able to apply your own particular strengths to a problem, and were you rewarded for it? If so, chances are that it felt great. Also, consider whether you had opportunities to learn and grow. Were there exciting new challenges at work, or did you pick up a useful new skill? If your work is dynamic, and you have the opportunity to use personal resources and talents on tasks that are clear, then there is a high likelihood that you enjoy your job and plan on continuing on with your current employer. The happiest workers are those who are able to use their special strengths every day they are on the job.
