Practice 360 Happiness
There are lots of articles, blogs, books and studies about being satisfied with your job. Most have common themes on how to be happy – have passion, find purpose, feel engaged. Companies spend significant amounts annually on trying to gage and then increase employee satisfaction and engagement but studies over the past several years indicate less than half of us are happy with our current work situation. And studies show that unhappy workers are less productive, take more sick time and have a harder time reaching their potential.
In my experience as a people manager, including participating in many annual satisfaction surveys, I have found that most feel job happiness is out of their direct control. Maybe they have been told they will not be getting a raise or a bonus, or they can’t see the impact they have on the organization, they don’t like their supervisor or they just feel unappreciated. For many the opportunity to change jobs is not practical due to family situations etc. so there is a feeling of being “stuck” in an unhappy job.
But one of the easiest way to improve your happiness at work is to practice what I call 360 Happiness and it is firmly in the control of the individual. 360 Happiness is providing positive feedback to or helping out others, which in turn returns a feeling of satisfaction and happiness to the giver. This give and return technique also helps increase the interaction of co-workers and fosters trust and collaboration within organizations. Absurdly simple yet in the stack of articles, blogs, books and studies there is data to back up the concept:
A study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison showed that offering to lend a hand to others at work increased feelings of happiness.
The TINYpulse 2013 Employee Engagement Survey found that employee happiness is more dependent on co-workers than direct managers with a very strong correlation between employee happiness and their rating of co-workers.
The Society for Human Resource Management 2013 Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement Survey found that although many employees emphasized compensation as it relates to job satisfaction, a significant proportion also placed importance on relationships with co-workers.
A study out of the UK found that 4 out of 5 workers choose friendly, supportive co-workers over higher compensation and a London School of Economics study also indicated spending a short time socializing with colleagues increases job satisfaction.
While my 360 Happiness technique will not fix all of your job satisfaction complaints it can help make your days happier and bring you closer to your colleagues. So if you are feeling like you need more happiness in your day at the office offer to spend a few minutes helping someone else out. Or find a reason to complement a co-worker on a project or any well done task. Maybe spend just a few minutes chatting about last night’s reality show.
Interestingly, many managers tend to wait for the structured performance review or handing out bonuses or salary increases to provide feedback and recognition. But most people are very happy to get an email or just a “hey you did a great job” face to face any time, even for small successes.
Whether you are an individual contributor or a people manager you will find that practicing 360 Happiness will increase not only your happiness at work but others as well.
