It's clear that engaged employees benefit a business. The behaviours associated with engagement are almost the definition of high performance in contemporary organisations. You don't have to look far to find sources extolling the benefits of engagement. From news articles to academic papers to government initiatives, an engaged workforce is seen as a worthy, and increasingly necessary, goal.
So why do so many organisations struggle to increase the engagement of their workforce? Why do they receive mediocre results on employee surveys? Why do they struggle to find measurable outcomes of their engagement initiatives?
Because whether or not to engage is ultimately an individual choice. It is not a choice an organisation can impose upon its employees. Therefore, most engagement initiatives can only focus on providing the workplace conditions for engagement. But external conditions alone are not enough to create engaged behaviour. And they certainly aren't enough to create engagement that will be sustainable over the long term.
For true engagement to occur, employees must be in the correct mindset.
Happiness at work
Happiness at work is the mindset in which employees actively choose to engage. It is a mindset that enables action to maximise performance and achieve potential. It is characterised by motivation, resilience and the positive desire to expand one's capabilities. Happiness at work is the feeling of working towards a goal with the belief that it will be achieved.
Happiness at work is not an emotion. It is neither a momentary high nor a transient state. Happiness at work is a mindset that maximises positivity when things are good and fosters resilience when times are tough. It is stable over the course of weeks to months, and is as important during the lows as during the highs.
Researching happiness at work
Our understanding of happiness at work has been developed through an ongoing research programme, currently in its sixth year. Our research began with a series of focus groups in a number of organisations and business schools. From there it evolved into questionnaire- and survey-based research. It has since expanded to include applied research within organisations around the world, as well as a continuation of independent research projects. At each stage, our research has been based upon, and guided by, the burgeoning fields of organisational scholarship and positive psychology.
Our research programme has yielded three key sets of findings. First, there is strong and consistent evidence for the link between happiness at work and engaged behaviour, and of the direct benefits of happiness at work. Second, we have developed a model of happiness at work that integrates a wide range of academic research for use in employee-focused initiatives. Finally, we have designed and built a series of tools for assessing happiness at work, analysing and reporting the findings, and acting upon the results.
The evidence and benefits
The evidence that happiness at work predicts engaged behaviour is clear. Compared to unhappy employees, happy employees are twice as committed to their jobs. They spend a significantly greater percentage of the time feeling energised and 'on task'. Happy employees receive more positive supervisory evaluations and exhibit greater success as leaders. They are more innovative and exhibit more long-term career successes. They take significantly fewer days of sick leave.
The benefits are also impressive. Making moderate increases in happiness at work can save a medium-sized organisation more than £3.4m per year. Reduced sick leave will save more than £60,000 in paid time off. Longer tenure will reduce turnover, saving in excess of £330,000. And increases in the percentage of time spent on task will save almost £3m in previously unproductive payroll. Note that these calculations are based only on base salary; they do not include secondary costs such as employer tax contributions and other costs associated with supporting employees.
The structure of happiness at work
Happiness at work consists of five core components:
Contribution is the effort you (and your team) make. Having a strong sense of contribution means you understand your objectives and feel that achieving your goals is important to both yourself and your organisation. You feel that you can raise issues and that your opinion is valued. Your feel you receive relevant and productive feedback.
Conviction is your short-term motivation in both good times and bad. Having a strong sense of conviction means that you are highly motivated and have, or can obtain, all the resources to do your job. You frequently feel absorbed in your work and feel you have the resilience to persevere through difficult times and achieve your goals despite obstacles.
Culture is the extent to which you feel you fit at work. Having a strong sense of culture means that you feel closely aligned to your organisation's values and get along well with your colleagues. You feel that your organisation is fair. And you have an established trust with your colleagues, with whom you share mutual respect.
Commitment is your long-term motivation. Having a strong sense of commitment means you find your work meaningful, and feel you are doing something truly worthwhile. You feel you can fulfil your purpose at work and are willing to put in a sustained effort to do so.
Confidence is your belief in your own abilities at work. Having a strong sense of confidence means that you feel you can deliver top-quality results across a range of tasks. You feel willing and able to take on new projects. You feel you are pushing your boundaries, but that you are rising to the challenge and expanding your capabilities.
The 5Cs of happiness at work are interconnected. If one falls short, it may drag the others down. But building all five can lead to a 'virtuous cycle' of steadily increasing happiness at work and, therefore, increasingly engaged behaviour.
The final component of happiness at work is the organisational context within which is it most likely to occur. We have found this consists of the feeling of having three things. First, trust in your organisation allows you to take on challenges and to voice your opinion. Recognition lets you know that your work is delivering results and gives you a clear path for expanding your abilities. Finally, pride in your organisation enables you to externalise your happiness at work and really drive peak performance in yourself and others.
Hidden benefits: momentum and thick value
Happiness at work is a mindset that enables engaged behaviour and it can be built and maintained using a structured methodology. But there are two additional, hidden benefits of applying happiness at work: generating a groundswell of momentum for change and creating thick value.
Most engagement initiatives rely on top-down momentum - the willingness of managers to embrace the initiative and display the diligence to follow through with it properly. But focusing on happiness at work encourages each employee to take ownership of their own development. By directly involving employees from day one, happiness at work has the potential to build a groundswell of momentum in which every employee pushes for positive change. This bottom-up approach can create a much larger and more active pool of 'champions' than a standard, top-down approach.
Thick value means that the success of a company must create more value than it consumes on a global scale. This means that the company's practices must be truly sustainable - financially, environmentally, socially and psychologically. For example, a company that engages in deforestation does more damage than good, slowly destroying the world on which it relies, and an organisation that maximises performance by creating negative stress and burnout slowly destroys the workforce on which it relies.
Happiness at work is about creating engaged behaviour that is both sustained and sustainable. The behaviour is sustained in that it is lasting, rather than a quick burst of effort, and it is sustainable in that it strengthens the employees who provide the effort, rather than weakening them.
Conclusion
Engaged behaviour has become almost synonymous with a successful business. But most organisations only create the environmental conditions for engagement. To truly build an engaged workforce, an organisation must foster in its employees the mindset necessary for sustainable performance.
Happiness at work is a mindset in which employees choose to engage. Its model, measurement and management have been developed during a six-year research programme. It does more than simply fill an important gap in organisations' ability to deal with, empower and motivate their employees - it represents an important step towards embracing a truly sustainable and value-creating business model.
Dr Simon J Lutterbie is director of research at the iOpener Institute for People and Performance. He can be contacted via http://www.iopenerinstitute.com/