After employee satisfaction and employee engagement, another important item on the agenda is "employee happiness." Especially since the pandemic, the topics of "happiness" in general and "employee happiness" in particular have come very much to the fore. International sources even treat it as a "top priority" issue. That is why I wanted to devote the final article in this series to it. Enjoy the read.
What Is Employee Happiness?
Perhaps before talking about employee happiness, we need to talk about the happiness of people as individuals.
I thought about this a lot while writing this article. What fundamentally determines our happiness as individuals? When do we become unhappy? What are the main factors that affect our happiness?
As I reflected on these questions, I noticed something. The periods when I felt unhappiest in my life were the times when I had lost my sense of purpose, didn't know what to do, and had either no goal at all or only a vague one.
In general, the periods when we feel confused, experience uncertainty, have somehow lost our motivation and struggle to find a reason to take action can be described as the periods when our individual happiness is at its lowest.
When we transfer this insight to our working lives, the picture is not really any different. Think about your own working life! Didn't you have similar experiences during the periods when you were unhappiest?
The Key Indicator of Happiness: Do You Have a Motivation That Gets You Out of Bed in the Morning?
At the very core of employee happiness lies "motivation."
If you have no reason to get out of bed in the morning, and you feel no motivation to go to work or to sit down at your computer at home (and here I mean motivations other than "earning money"), we can hardly call you a happy employee.
Employees who have a reason to start an ordinary working day, who know well where this "why" stands first in their own lives and then in their working lives and what it serves, and who can find the strength within themselves to carry it forward, are your "happy employees." There are probably not very many of them in your organization; in fact, in my experience, there are extremely few.
Finding Meaning in Your Work: Do You Have a Specific Goal?
I mentioned this in my article How to Increase Employee Engagement?, and since it is relevant here, I want to emphasize it again. "Finding meaning in the work you do, defining its purpose well and supporting it with clear, well-defined goals" is again among the factors with the greatest impact on happiness. It is quite clear that when things in our lives are as clear and well defined as possible, we are psychologically more at ease and happier.
The past year alone is proof of this. Many of us have been in an unhappy state of mind for some time, because we are living through an open-ended period in which we don't know what will happen, we can't see the road ahead, and uncertainty and VUCA have worn us all down. This increases our unhappiness, whereas if everything were open, clear and certain, we would feel at least somewhat more relaxed and happy. This is exactly why I believe companies that want to make more room for satisfied, engaged and happy employees should pay extra attention to this point.
Who Is the Unhappy Employee?
In previous articles, we first defined the satisfied employee and then the engaged employee. Now I'd like to turn things around and take a brief look at who the unhappy employee is, rather than the happy one. That seems more meaningful.
First of all, we can say that the unhappy employee is, in fact, an employee whose engagement has reached its lowest point. Just as satisfaction is a prerequisite for engagement, "engagement" is a prerequisite for a happy employee.
If you ask what contributes to an employee becoming unhappy, negative experiences over time first cause the employee's engagement to fall and, if no improvements are made, eventually turn them into an "unhappy employee."
Let's take a brief look at what can be observed in unhappy employees.
- The unhappy employee has either no motivation or very little. As a result, they are weak when it comes to taking action.
- Not only is their motivation low, but their willingness and determination to work on increasing that motivation themselves are low as well.
- They are not aware of what their work serves, what its contribution is or which cog in the machine they are, and they are not interested in it.
- They do not take initiative in their work, and their potential to develop their work and themselves is low.
- At the same time, their efficiency and productivity are also low.
- They don't think long term; they focus on day-to-day tasks. They generally lack a "How can I take this work one step further?" mindset. What really matters to them is getting the job done as quickly as possible.
- Because they struggle to take initiative, they constantly need to be told what to do.
- They tend to be pessimistic and passive. Their involvement is low, and their relationships with their team and colleagues are problematic or soon become so.
- They have a high tendency to leave, and their tendency to complain and criticize has risen accordingly.
- They do not come up with solutions or create alternatives to reach an outcome on any issue.
However, none of this is the employee's shortcoming or fault; no one wants to have the kinds of experiences listed above in their working life. Since I believe that everything in life (positive or negative) is shaped by the principle of reciprocity, I think the influence of all the parties involved needs to be questioned. Nothing happens without a reason; if an employee is unhappy, the organization undoubtedly has a share in it too.
The Dimensions of Happiness
International sources emphasize that happiness should be examined in three main dimensions.
These are the dimensions of Physical Health, Social Health and Emotional (Mental) Health. If there is a disruption or deficiency in any of these three dimensions, it is not possible to speak of happiness.
Physical Health: We all know what physical health is. If we think of our body as a machine, it can be described as all of the machine's hardware being in good condition and running without disruption so that the machine can work. From a happiness perspective, whenever there is even the slightest problem with our physical health, we generally see a drop in our happiness. Even if we just have a headache, we tend to feel unhappy and have a bad day.
But even if our physical health is at its peak in every respect, we cannot say that our happiness will be at the "highest" level as a result. Research shows that physical health alone is not enough for a person's happiness. Yes, it may be the first and most important stage, but it must be supported by social and emotional health.
Social Health: We can say that this dimension concerns a person's ability to communicate in a healthy way and develop good, positive relationships, first with their close circle, family and friends, and then with the people they spend time with at work.
Research shows that people who can build strong, good social relationships and who have strong social interaction are much more efficient and productive at work. In this sense, I believe it will be a differentiator for companies to consider their employees' social health, especially in the hybrid and remote working models adopted after the pandemic, and to put practices in place that serve it. Supporting and increasing social interaction as much as possible is among the first things that need to be done. But there is another dimension that, in my view, is the most critical of all: our emotional health.
Emotional (Mental) Health: In my view, this is the area that most affects the happiness of the individual and the employee.
Emotional health describes a state in which a person or employee is in good mental shape, feels good and is eager to do things in life. If our emotional health is not in good shape, it is simply impossible to speak of a happy individual or a happy employee.
Emotional health is so important for employee happiness that, precisely for this reason, companies started investing in keeping their employees' psychological state in a good place as soon as the pandemic began, and this trend continues to grow. Protecting people's emotional health lies at the heart of everything companies now refer to as "well-being", all the initiatives "aimed at helping employees feel better."
Because we all know (companies and individuals alike) that if our minds are not at ease, if we are not mentally well and if we don't feel good, it is almost impossible to achieve results in anything, whether in our private lives or at work. So if we are going to invest in employee happiness, the place where we need to start is very clear😊
Until the next article,
Stay healthy,
