Stop happying and start helping

“HAPPIER EMPLOYEES ARE MORE PRODUCTIVE” screamed recent headlines as a study from the University of Warwick hit the streets.  Music to the ears of some HR practitioners who see their role as Entertainment Officers with the responsibility of making work fun for employees, rather than their actual role of assisting managers to provide the conditions to lift productivity.

I don’t think the study is necessarily wrong.  An employee that does not feel that their organisation respects them, that can’t trust the organisation to not cause them harm, and who gets treated in a way that does not feel fair is never going to put their best effort forward.  And they’re not going to be happy.

But to conclude from the study that organisations should provide chocolates and bean-bags or offer free meditation sessions for every employee is simply not valid.

Oswald, Proto and Sgroi (the researchers) actually weigh in on this topic (this is the part you won’t see quoted):

“Although our work suggests that happier workers are more productive, we cannot, as a rule, say that real-world employers should expend more resources on making their employees happier. In some of the experiments described below, half of the time in the laboratory was spent in raising the subjects’ happiness levels, and in one of the other experiments we spent approximately two dollars per person on fruit and chocolate to raise productivity by almost 20% for a short period of concentrated work. This study illustrates the existence of a potentially important mechanism. However, it cannot adjudicate, and is not designed to adjudicate, on the net benefits and costs within existing business settings” (page 3).

And the actual conclusion of the study is critical: “This study provides evidence of a link between human happiness and human productivity” (page 12).  This is not insignificant, but that’s all it shows.  Nothing more.  Just a link.

So what does work?  How about this:

1. Provide a workplace where the roles and their relationships will actually see the organisation’s work delivered rather than create conflict (yes…that’s where your most of your conflict is coming from – it’s the role relationships, not the people!).
2. Fill those roles with people who can handle the complexity of what the role requires so others aren’t subjected to dealing with lack of competence (it’s possible to assess for this)
3. Make sure every manager in the place knows the basics of the above two points, and then what they need to know and do to lead their people so the work gets done and people are treated in a way that’s consistent, clear and fair.

Think about it.  If your organisation or department had the above three conditions in place, would your people be happier?  And would their productivity be higher?

And you can save thousands on the incense budget.