Happiness. What does it provide?

Steering for employee happiness is an important strategic choice. Every euro invested on employee happiness pays for itself five times over. (Rath & Harter, 2010)

Research from Positive Psychology shows that happy employees:

• 31% more productive;
• Being sick 27% less;
• Provide 12% more service and service delivery;
• 69% less turnover.

Factors that influence job happiness

Work occupies a central place in many people's lives. It is generally time-consuming, it is an important source of income, and, just as important, it fulfills needs for social contacts, appreciation and recognition, and self-development. Work is thus a significant factor in human happiness. This has to do with:

• Social climate; Most studies on work and happiness show that the social climate in the organization is an important factor. The better the social interaction, the higher the job satisfaction.
• Sufficient challenge; One of the biggest sources of dissatisfaction at work is boredom and lack of challenge. Challenges help sharpen your mind and creativity.
• Existence security; Research shows that unemployment is directly related to being unhappy. One of the reasons why people become so unhappy from losing their jobs is that they feel they are now worth nothing or even feel they no longer exist. This is because many people identify with the role they play at work. Therefore, it makes sense when you expand your self-image. After all, you are more than your job.
• Autonomy; According to various studies, employees determine their level of happiness largely based on the degree of autonomy. When people experience space for their own initiatives, time management, and time allocation you increase creativity and productivity.
• Shared purpose creates intrinsic motivation within your work; Scientific research shows that people are happier when they are happy with their work, and that does not depend on a job with a lot of prestige. A common goal appears to best trigger that intrinsic motivation. And by realizing as an employee that you are an indispensable part of achieving that goal.
• Getting fulfillment from your job is an important response to experiencing stress. Any employee can turn his or her job into something that serves a higher purpose. Howard Cutler cites the example of an administrative assistant in a large company. Every day she picked out someone who was not feeling well. She reached out to this coworker or just grabbed a cup of coffee. Because of her "mission," she enjoyed going to work every day. When there is room to act from your motives, satisfaction arises. Seeing your work as a calling is an important happiness factor, according to American psychiatrist Howard C. Cutler.
• Self-insight and self-confidence is also a trait that contributes to happiness at work; When you know what your talents are you can use them at work, increasing your love and commitment to the work. Moreover, understanding your strengths and of your limitations gives you self-confidence. You know what you are and are not capable of. This makes you less hurt when others criticize you.

How do you find happiness at work?

The foundations of happiness at work can be divided into:

Individual: Pleasure | Satisfaction | Competence | Autonomy

Organization: Trust | Connection | Meaning | Appreciation

So all of these components serve as important starting points, for both managers and HR professionals, to offer sustainable interventions on them. This can be in the form of an annual interview, training and workshops and creating awareness around these themes.

Workload affects job happiness

Despite the fact that work happiness has remained pretty much the same in recent years, it appears that workload has a major impact on work happiness. People with a high workload are:

• Less happy in work & daily life;
• Quicker to choose another job;
• Rather touched by psychological insecurity;
• More sensitive to negative emotions;
• More worried about getting burnout;
• More dissatisfied with salary and working conditions.

As workloads increase, more and more people are experiencing stress and the absenteeism rate for private companies and the government in the Netherlands has risen from 4.7% in 2020 to 5.3% in 2023. Employees who indicated that the reason for their most recent absence was work-related, with workload as the main reason, were on average 38 working days away from work. An employee's average absence due to absenteeism is 17 working days. Of all workers who were absent because of work pressure, 33 percent were absent for long periods of time (20 working days or more). This is more than twice the average for workers who were absent from work.

As a result, unnecessary human energy flows away from organizations, resulting in lower levels of performance.

Personal leadership and appreciation

Results from the 2023 National Work Happiness Survey show that people who have a good understanding of their own talents do not necessarily always experience more work happiness. Hereto, it is also important that they feel appreciation from both their colleagues and their supervisors.

On the statement "My colleagues know my strengths sufficiently" (77% indicated that they did), people scored on job happiness as follows:

• At low: 52% low on job happiness
• At average: 79% middle on job happiness
• At high: 90% high on job happiness

On the statement "My supervisor knows my strengths sufficiently" (70% indicated that this was true), people scored on job happiness as follows:

• At low: 39% low on job happiness
• At average: 71% middle on job happiness
• At high: 87% high on work happinessFrom this you can see that knowing one's own talents and skills (competencies) is not only an important factor that contributes to work happiness, but also that the environment (colleagues and manager) recognizing and acknowledging your competencies is an important added value for creating more work happiness. Through personal leadership, people are better able to communicate from self-insight. This leads to more self-confidence and the ability to indicate where talents and pitfalls lie. This in turn leads to more happiness at work!

Getting started on time

Besides the fact that not paying attention to the above themes comes at the expense of individual performance, it is also important to pay attention to this at the organizational level from a preventive point of view. Several studies show that dealing with happy people makes others happier. "Happiness is a collective phenomenon," says Chiel van der Linden, one of the organizers of "The Happiest Congress in the Netherlands. So the opposite can also happen.

It pays to make happiness a business case!

As mentioned, research has shown that happy people are more productive and creative. They also handle stress better and are even less likely to be sick. This sounds like music to your ears, doesn't it?

By focusing on employee happiness and creating a corporate culture and environment that promotes happiness, the entire company flourishes. Happiness is strongly correlated with health. This is evident from the fact that happiness is a predictor of lifespan, regardless of previous health. Because health has a substantial effect on a happy life, this offers an interesting starting point for a preventive health policy aimed at sustainable employability. Collaborate with Simple Check offers a solution!

By gaining insight into topics such as 'personal leadership', but also into mental and physical health, the role of the manager, and the experience of job satisfaction and engagement, you create awareness at the individual level and, as an organization, you obtain important management information to adjust your policy. Simple Check not only offers interesting baseline measurements on all these themes, but also targeted interventions and follow-up processes.

Happiness is 40% determined by one's own behavior and thought patterns_.

Professor Sonja Lybuomirsky

University of California

Source:

https://tgthr.nl/kennisbank
https://tgthr.nl/gelukkige-medewerkers
https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/perma-model
https://personal.eur.nl/veenhoven/Pub2000s/2005e-fulln.pdf
The Art of Happiness at Work by the Dalai Lama & Howard C. Cutler