Happiness at work
Published on 12-09-2019
What is Happiness At Work and what role does it play in your career? We spend by far the most time at work, with our colleagues. But how does the relationship with co-workers relate to personal happiness? CompanyMatch did research on this topic and provides answers to these and other questions about happiness at work. We consciously and unconsciously look for common factors that bring us together, both privately and at work. Friends, acquaintances, relationships, colleagues: we find our “soul mates” in shared values, beliefs and healthy contradictions.
Curious about the impact and importance of happiness at work or how you can measure employee satisfaction? Download our white paper Happiness at Work now!
Colleagues who strive for a productive and pleasant working atmosphere find a good fit between person and organisation essential. Not very surprising right? But how do you respond as an employer? The changing labour market is characterised by new generations of jobseekers, such as generations X, Y and Z who look for specific information when they orientate themselves on the labour market. The expected match of the candidate with the organisation largely determines whether a candidate is actually going to apply. By way of illustration: 85% of all jobseekers first look for company culture related information when looking for a new work environment or job.
In the first months after the candidate has started, he tests his expectations with his first actual experiences. This is the first important point where happiness at work can be measured.
Happiness at work: a definition
How do we define the term happiness at work? First, it is important to know how happiness is defined. According to Emiliana Simon-Thomas, scientific director of the Greater Good Science Center, (2018), a happy person is someone who experiences an easy time and feels good but also does not experience any problems in recovering from setbacks. Moreover, a happy person has strong and supportive social connections and they believe that their presence in the world is relevant. Happiness is furthermore based on a deeper sense of meaning and meaningful contact with others.
In this sense, happiness at work is comparable to general happiness and includes the overall sense of satisfaction, recognition and meaning that employees experience within their position at an organisation. In our white paper, we elaborate on the definition of happiness at work and its associated characteristics.
How do you measure happiness at work?
Which instruments do you, as an employer, have at your disposal to measure job satisfaction? Forget the annual employee satisfaction survey. That is gradually becoming outdated. Asking for employee satisfaction at a fixed time in the year is not very reliable and more and more employers want to get rid of the great burden it entails for the organisation. It is better to ask employees when it is relevant to them. For example: immediately after the recruitment process, during or after the onboarding, during their employment and also after they have left. This provides reliable data & insights. Real-time too. Doorsight, the Talent Lifecycle app is a good example of this.
Back to the topic of happiness at work. In the white paper we offer more insight into the use of the following methods to measure work happiness:
- Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)
- Employee Satisfaction Index (ESI)
Happiness at work is a team performance
Happiness at work is comparable to how we generally experience the concept of happiness. It is more than just a mood. It includes the overall sense of satisfaction, recognition and meaning that employees find within their position and role in the organisation. Happiness at work comes from being able to deliver good work, entering into quality working relationships with colleagues and getting recognition from managers. According to a study by Robert Half (2017), employees (eight out of ten) realise that being happy is a team performance.
Successful organisations score high on happiness at work
As an employer, if you score high for happiness at work, this immediately has a positive influence on factors such as productivity and profitability. Committed employees are 17% more productive and 22% more profitable. The accompanying white paper illustrates that employee happiness is crucial to the long-term health of your organisation. At the same time, it is also one of the biggest challenges in the coming years for HR and Recruitment of both large and smaller companies. It can make or break your reputation as an employer brand.
Although there is no one-size-fits-all approach to work happiness, it is essential to recognise the significance of committed and satisfied employees as the basis for your success. A well-functioning, employee-focused HR strategy can be the first step toward higher revenues, higher profitability and better retention. That is why it is recommended that you, as an HR and Recruitment professional, focus on recruiting the right talent by defining a clear and recognisable employer brand based on lived values and constantly monitoring and adapting them to the company culture.
Successful employers measure happiness at work and use the data to improve themselves.
Happiness at work starts with a good match
A good match with their employer makes employees happy, self-aware and it increases their motivation to keep developing. In addition, expectations and experiences, leadership style, behaviour and ambition play an important role with a good PO fit (person-organisation fit). PO fit is therefore strongly linked to the identity and employer brand of the organisation.
The world of Recruitment and HR is changing rapidly. Developments such as ever-increasing digitisation, big data, predictive analytics and other innovative recruitment technologies not only have a major impact on recruitment methods but also raise jobseekers’ expectations. For today’s jobseekers, it is of great importance that personal values, motivations and motivators match the organisation they are applying to. PO Fit has, therefore, become one of the most important criteria in the orientation phase of jobseekers.
Want to know more about happiness at work? Download the white paper.