Putting Performance And Happiness Together In The Workplace

Employee happiness has increasingly become an imperative in business. Why? There is now growing evidence that when one’s employees are happy, organizations thrive.  

Performance and happiness go hand in hand in making an organization successful.  With both an appropriate performance management system and a positive approach to influencing people that increases happiness, an organization’s key results can more likely be achieved and sustained.

Here are the 7 most important reasons why happiness at work is the #1 productivity booster.

1. Happy people work better with others

Happy people are a lot more fun to be around and consequently have better relations at work. This translates into:

• Better teamwork with your colleagues
• Better employee relations if you’re a manager
• More satisfied customers if you’re in a service job
• Improved sales if you’re a sales person

2. Happy people are more creative

If your productivity depends on being able to come up with new ideas, you need to be happy at work. 

If people are in a good mood on a given day, they’re more likely to have creative ideas that day, as well as the next day, even if we take into account their mood that next day.

There seems to be a cognitive process that gets set up when people are feeling good that leads to more flexible, fluent, and original thinking, and there’s actually a carryover, an incubation effect, to the next day.

3. Happy people fix problems instead of complaining about them

When you don’t like your job, every molehill looks like a mountain. It becomes difficult to fix any problem without agonizing over it or complaining about it first. When you’re happy at work and you run into a snafu – you just fix it.

4. Happy people have more energy

Happy people have more energy and are therefore more efficient at everything they do.

5. Happy people are way more motivated

Low motivation means low productivity, and the only sustainable, reliable way to be motivated at work is to be happy and like what you do.

6. Happy people get sick less often

Getting sick is a productivity killer and if you don’t like your job you’re more prone to contract a long list of diseases including ulcers, cancer and diabetes. You’re also more prone to workplace stress and burnout.

One study assessed the impact of job strain on the health of 21,290 female nurses in the US and found that the women most at risk of ill health were those who didn’t like their jobs.

7. Happy people worry less about making mistakes – and consequently make fewer mistakes

When you’re happy at work the occasional mistake doesn’t bother you much. You pick yourself up, learn from it and move on. You also don’t mind admitting to others that you screwed up – you simply take responsibility, apologize and fix it. This relaxed attitude means that less mistakes are made, and that you’re more likely to learn from them.