This is the first of a series of post on happiness at work. Happiness is one of the most valuable practical outcomes of applying psychology, and doing so at work can be transformative. We typically spend 40 hours a week working, which is a very long time to be doing something which makes us miserable.
Few people I've met had really made a point of pursuing happiness at work. It's not a widely held expectation that we should enjoy our jobs, and perhaps even the opposite is true, that there is some moral value in spending time doing something you find unpleasant. This internalisation of the Protestant Work Ethic has been, perhaps surprisingly, escaped the Danes. They have word for happiness at work, Arbejdsglæde, and both expect the workplace to allow them to be happy, and make decisions in support of that. This has considerable benefits, including a higher per-capita GDP than the UK.
Before I get stuck in, it's important to define what I mean by happiness here. What I'm talking about is the long-term, stable contentment that builds over a period of time, rather than one-off moments of joy which fade quickly. Admittedly, the existence of both of these types of happiness might be related, but my focus for this post is an ongoing satisfaction with what you're doing and the circumstances in which you do it.
Why, when we have many other options, do we choose to go to work? Regardless of how it may feel, it is an active choice. I accept there may be downsides to not turning up on Monday morning, but they are not nearly so large as to keep someone doing the same thing, week after week, for over forty years. In the UK, we have a welfare system which will provide you with a bare-minimum living standard if you do not have any other income, so your basic physical needs don't require a job to meet.
The most obvious thing we get from a job is an income. This can support us materially, but it can also boost our social status, particularly if we display the extent of our income with purchases. Because of the range of things people can buy, the options for self-expression through consumption are far greater if you have a larger income. Money may not buy taste, but it does give you the option of expressing yourself in ways you can't if you don't have it. Interestingly, though, money seems to buy happiness up to a point, but not much further. That point is surprisingly low. Studies in the US have shown that after around $75,000 of annual income, increases meet diminishing returns. Once basic needs are taken care of, raises seem to have less and less effect.
For many people there are other reasons beside income to do the job they do. Daniel Pink has identified three factors, autonomy, mastery and purpose as the most fundamental things which motivate us to work. These are intrinsic, as opposed to the extrinsic forces of financial reward or the fear of getting in to trouble. Autonomy is the freedom to work in the way you want and not have to defer to authority every time a decision needs to be made. Mastery is the experience of being really, really good at something to the point at which you can provide solutions to problems which elude most people. Finally, purpose is how the work you do ties into the grand scheme of things and what that means for your life.
With these in mind, I'd like to talk about the difference between work, and a job. A job is what you have to do to earn enough money to live, and involves all of the day-to-day frustrations of working within an organisation. It might provide your material needs, but it doesn't do much to meet those intrinsic motivators which research suggests are so important. Your work, on the other hand, is what you are called to do. It's that bit of the job which you would do even if you didn't get paid. The more work there is in your job, the happier you are. Many people look forward to retirement for years, and some find when they finally get there that they don't enjoy it. A major contributor to that is the removal of the fulfilling aspect of work from their lives.
As an individual it can feel like you have relatively limited scope to turn your job into something more in line with the work you'd like it to be. If you want to stay in the job you have, however, there are certainly things which can be done. Take note of the parts of your job which you really enjoy and which give you deep satisfaction. Come up with a list of three things which you really enjoy, but which you suspect are relatively rare, or at least not universal. For me, those turned out to be working with change, engaging with people, and using new technology.
Those are the aspects you want to focus on and develop when the opportunity arises. This might be optional projects which come up, or the chance to do training courses which take you in that direction. They're also likely the things you're best at, so you're doing your employer a favour by concentrating on them. You might not be able to get there in a single step, but identifying what direction happiness lies is a necessary part of the journey.
If you want to change the organisation you work for, it can be worth discussing the value of increased happiness with management. From a business perspective, cultivating a happy work culture makes a lot of sense. The contribution made by the happiest employees is considerable. Happy people tend to find more creative solutions to problems and show higher resilience to adverse events. They take fewer sick days and are less likely to leave the organisation. For these, and perhaps for other reasons, happy employees show greater overall productivity than average.
So, go to work and be happy, even if that means changing your job or finding a new one!
Few people I've met had really made a point of pursuing happiness at work. It's not a widely held expectation that we should enjoy our jobs, and perhaps even the opposite is true, that there is some moral value in spending time doing something you find unpleasant. This internalisation of the Protestant Work Ethic has been, perhaps surprisingly, escaped the Danes. They have word for happiness at work, Arbejdsglæde, and both expect the workplace to allow them to be happy, and make decisions in support of that. This has considerable benefits, including a higher per-capita GDP than the UK.
Before I get stuck in, it's important to define what I mean by happiness here. What I'm talking about is the long-term, stable contentment that builds over a period of time, rather than one-off moments of joy which fade quickly. Admittedly, the existence of both of these types of happiness might be related, but my focus for this post is an ongoing satisfaction with what you're doing and the circumstances in which you do it.
Why, when we have many other options, do we choose to go to work? Regardless of how it may feel, it is an active choice. I accept there may be downsides to not turning up on Monday morning, but they are not nearly so large as to keep someone doing the same thing, week after week, for over forty years. In the UK, we have a welfare system which will provide you with a bare-minimum living standard if you do not have any other income, so your basic physical needs don't require a job to meet.
The most obvious thing we get from a job is an income. This can support us materially, but it can also boost our social status, particularly if we display the extent of our income with purchases. Because of the range of things people can buy, the options for self-expression through consumption are far greater if you have a larger income. Money may not buy taste, but it does give you the option of expressing yourself in ways you can't if you don't have it. Interestingly, though, money seems to buy happiness up to a point, but not much further. That point is surprisingly low. Studies in the US have shown that after around $75,000 of annual income, increases meet diminishing returns. Once basic needs are taken care of, raises seem to have less and less effect.
For many people there are other reasons beside income to do the job they do. Daniel Pink has identified three factors, autonomy, mastery and purpose as the most fundamental things which motivate us to work. These are intrinsic, as opposed to the extrinsic forces of financial reward or the fear of getting in to trouble. Autonomy is the freedom to work in the way you want and not have to defer to authority every time a decision needs to be made. Mastery is the experience of being really, really good at something to the point at which you can provide solutions to problems which elude most people. Finally, purpose is how the work you do ties into the grand scheme of things and what that means for your life.
With these in mind, I'd like to talk about the difference between work, and a job. A job is what you have to do to earn enough money to live, and involves all of the day-to-day frustrations of working within an organisation. It might provide your material needs, but it doesn't do much to meet those intrinsic motivators which research suggests are so important. Your work, on the other hand, is what you are called to do. It's that bit of the job which you would do even if you didn't get paid. The more work there is in your job, the happier you are. Many people look forward to retirement for years, and some find when they finally get there that they don't enjoy it. A major contributor to that is the removal of the fulfilling aspect of work from their lives.
As an individual it can feel like you have relatively limited scope to turn your job into something more in line with the work you'd like it to be. If you want to stay in the job you have, however, there are certainly things which can be done. Take note of the parts of your job which you really enjoy and which give you deep satisfaction. Come up with a list of three things which you really enjoy, but which you suspect are relatively rare, or at least not universal. For me, those turned out to be working with change, engaging with people, and using new technology.
Those are the aspects you want to focus on and develop when the opportunity arises. This might be optional projects which come up, or the chance to do training courses which take you in that direction. They're also likely the things you're best at, so you're doing your employer a favour by concentrating on them. You might not be able to get there in a single step, but identifying what direction happiness lies is a necessary part of the journey.
If you want to change the organisation you work for, it can be worth discussing the value of increased happiness with management. From a business perspective, cultivating a happy work culture makes a lot of sense. The contribution made by the happiest employees is considerable. Happy people tend to find more creative solutions to problems and show higher resilience to adverse events. They take fewer sick days and are less likely to leave the organisation. For these, and perhaps for other reasons, happy employees show greater overall productivity than average.
So, go to work and be happy, even if that means changing your job or finding a new one!
Comments
Post a Comment