Back when I managed a staff of close to 40 people, I used to get criticized by my higher ups for worrying about the general happiness quotient of those employees. Not that I was interested in coddling them. I just believed that if the only reason someone was sticking around the company was money, sooner or later someone would come up with a bigger wad of cash to woo him or her away. For me, productivity has always come down to the health of the organization's culture and the ability to a person to grow within that culture.
Turns out that my interest in happiness wasn't such a stupid thing, even though I was made to feel sometimes that it was. There is a fascinating, must-read article in the January/February issue of the Harvard Business Review that explores this exact issue: "Creating Sustainable Performance." The overall thesis of the authors is pretty simple: "Happy employees produce more than unhappy ones over the long term." They base this statement on research conducted in conjunction with the Ross School of Business Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship. (The authors are both professors in business management: Gretchen Spreitzer is with the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business and Christine Porath is with Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business.)
What does being happy on the job mean?
The Harvard Business Review authors equate it with the idea that someone can "thrive" in their position. That there are opportunities for advancement, that they have the chance to learn new skills, and that they have a sense of mission. Generally speaking, the research showed that thriving employees:
To a large degree, a person's ability to thrive happily in his or her job will come down to the environment in which he or she works. There are four key contributors, the authors write:
How well does your organization do at encouraging its employees to thrive? As market conditions continue to shift seemingly overnight, that's a really important question to ask and keep asking.
(Stock illustration of smiley face in post thumbnail by Jay Lopez, courtesy of Stock.xchng)
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com