PPPM spells happiness. According to a recent course (University of Texas) ROI and Happiness:
Pleasure
Positivity
Purpose
Meaning
This all leads to happiness in the workplace.
An esoteric concept, no not at all, but one to easily diminish if you don’t care about your people. Remember how you treat your people tells everything about you. We are not talking about avoiding negativity at all costs and pretending to be happy (note: high performing teams cannot carry passengers). Happiness leads to success not the other way around. It’s about being optimistic and resilient, employees are as responsible as employers to achieve workplace happiness. Attitude becomes a more important attribute than skill.
So, what does the science say:
- Happier people are physically healthier so take less sick leave (16 days less).
- Retention improves dramatically.
- Happier people are also more collegial, so they are better team players.
- Happier people are more creative and make better or more objective decisions.
- Organizations with happier employees are more productive and profitable. (outperformed S&P top 500 14 times)
This is why investing in employee happiness is a very smart thing to do.
To start with it would be useful for organizations to gain an understanding of the five main determinants of employee happiness: basic needs, autonomy, mastery, belonging and abundance culture. The issue is having balance, all are important and people perform best when they are in the ‘flow’, their competence is matched to their challenges.
Employees can do even more for their own happiness. In fact, the employee should be encouraged to take the lead.
The health of our relationships at work is more important than physical health in relation to happiness. The science shows, the more you genuinely care for your co-workers, the happier and more successful you are likely to be. Culture is an important determinant of happiness because culture is a feature of the environment and the environment wields a powerful influence over our behaviors.
Simple things the employer can do:
- Create equality among employees.
- Treat external stakeholders, particularly your suppliers well.
- Hire based on values.
- Make mastery part of performance review.
- Give $200 to your employees to personalise their workspace.
- Make employees take their leave.
- Reduce face time at work.
- Reduce too many rules.
Simple things the employee can do:
- Make the effort to stay well (healthy lifestyle).
- Express gratitude.
- Seek happiness outside of work.
- Don’t do work on leave.
- Use your most productive time to be creative.
- Maintain a desire for learning (mastery).
In conclusion, a word of caution, you will be happier at work and hence, more successful. This is good, but if you are not careful, the success can sabotage your happiness. Wealth seems to be especially potent at relationship spoiling. Studies show that the wealthier we become, the less we prioritize our relationships over things like making money and being even more successful.
