Can happiness be measured?
- December 10, 2019
Why is it in the interest of the company to measure happiness? Can it be measured? For Governments, it is an indicator of social progress, guiding people to live better, and for companies it is a way of caring for their workers and attracting talent. But what are the indicators that measure well-being beyond income? Freedom, trust, generosity and social support could be some of them.
Until now, the economic wealth of a country was synonymous with happiness. But today’s society thinks less about money and more about adding value to its life and work. That is why new indicators such as the Human Development Index and the World Happiness Index are emerging.
There are already initiatives such as the “Beyond GDP” movement, which calls for more real measures of a population’s well-being. Some countries have taken initiatives to create indicators of quality of life, such as air.
This interest in discovering what gives well-being to citizens beyond money and their day-to-day work explores aspects such as physical and mental health, continuous learning, environmental quality, connectivity… Values that no company should lose sight of if it wants to attract talent. Because, just as there is a great mobility of workers between countries because of their opportunities and their good standard of living, employees also value feeling at ease and this is due to multiple factors.
Asking workers for their hapinesss
Did you know that the happiest countries in the world are Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland, according to the annual UN “World Happiness Report”? It is interesting to note that in these countries, both native citizens and immigrants are happy. Why? Quality of life, which is fundamental to well-being. So why not invest in studying how to achieve it and measure it in business? According to the study Excellence and Values, elaborated by Eurofirms and IESE Business School, 7 out of every 10 employees are not happy in their work. A fact that shows there is still a long way to go. This same study highlights the keys to social and business sustainability, which will certainly help to improve the well-being of people in the company. And what are the most outstanding ones? A fair salary, motivating, and giving opportunities to learn, generating healthy and stress-free work environments, strengthening identification with the company’s mission, and contributing to society are the keys to reaching excellence.
And it really shouldn’t be complicated. For sure, if you ask in your work environment how to be happier, you would get common answers like autonomy, partnership, comfort, flexibility, holidays… Although there’s also talk of the sense of belonging, vision of the future, and support as values for achieving happy workers.
But how do you know what makes your company’s workers happy? It is not enough to imagine or implement universal values. It is necessary to ask questions and carry out surveys to obtain relevant data and adopt effective measures.
As an example, Cyberclick, a company specialized in the optimization of online marketing campaigns and digital advertising, measures the happiness of employees daily, sending an e-mail at the end of the day with the following three questions and a final space for contributions:
- In what mood have you arrived today?
- In what mood are you leaving today?
- From 1 to 10, how much do you like what you have done today?
Besides, with the monthly happiness test, more long-term issues such as salary, conditions, and working environment are measured.
In the market exist tools and applications to measure happiness in the company such as Celpax, Happydonia, Happyforce, etc… All agree that connecting with workers, know them better, listen to their ideas and suggestions, and redounds to an increase in their motivation and productivity. And especially, it avoids losing talented workers due their dissatisfaction has not been detected in time. Real contact with the people on the team will also help us take the pulse in a more humane and closer way.
Happy workers are, therefore, beneficial to the company and themselves. The price for achieving this will probably be to change the mentality of their managers towards a new type of leadership. Would you dare to measure happiness in your company and to applying new measures?
People First es un espacio de inspiración donde compartimos contenidos con un eje común: las personas. Desde distintas ópticas y sectores, abordamos varios temas, tendencias y noticias de interés humano.
