Workplace is Happy Hours!

Your Workplace: - You spend most of your active time in your workplace. Your workplace may be your shop, factory, business centre, a government or a private office, construction or operation site, laboratory, clinic, college or university. You may be working there as an employee, operator, supervisor, manager, executive, teacher, research scholar or the like. But in the context of your happiness in your workplace, the situation remains the same, more or less. Your workplace consists of office space with furniture, the documents and files, the books, the machines, and the equipments you use or handle.

2. What is Happiness: - If you are not enjoying your workplace, you carry your anger, frustration and irritations to home and it makes your life miserable. Happiness is a state of mind. It is an emotion or feeling. You may feel good now and bad the next moment depending upon any internal or external situations. But happiness in workplace should mean the totality of your happiness over the months and years. Considering happiness is largely comes from within, the question comes if one should complain about a irritating boss, leg pulling colleagues, non-cooperative employees and a poor environment or outdated machines and the day-to-day conflicts. As a person, you have some intrinsic values and level of intrinsic happiness which is inborn or acquired and which remains the same at home or at the workplace, and which may also influence your overall happiness in your work place.

3. Factors of unhappiness: - Let us now consider the major factors that cause unhappiness in the workplace.

(a) The Salary: - The primary reason for your joining the job may be for earning a livelihood. The pay packs depends upon your qualification, experience and the present position occupied by you. But the question is if your happiness gradient is the size of your pay pack? Studies say it is not. In fact, according to studies, people are becoming increasingly unhappy these days in spite of good salary. It is found money counts towards happiness to the extent of a getting a liveable salary. Beyond that, it may not. This means, if you are not able to meet your day-to-day basic needs from your salary, you are likely to be unhappy. But if you have a salary above or much above the liveable salary in your society, happiness is not related to the amount of your pay pack.
(b) The Boss: - I consider the second most factor responsible for your happiness or unhappiness is your boss. A bad boss, who is rude, over-demanding, disoriented, unfair or lacking in humane values, is likely to be the primary cause of unhappiness. Even personality conflict with your immediate boss leads you to recurring unhappiness. I could not find if any studies have been made in this regard. In many organisations, largely in government and big corporate houses, there is a system of evaluation of the employees. A senior is required to evaluate his juniors. But the evaluation relates to performance. I feel the evaluation process, should assess happiness or particularly in terms of behaviour of the seniors to his juniors. This is important, because, the productivity is also linked to the happiness of the employees. The corporate houses, worldwide, are becoming increasingly aware of it. This is why, in addition to training their officers in management, they are inviting reputed spiritual gurus (teachers) to teach techniques of meditation, stress management, relaxation and on the art of living courses in the office.
© Leisure and work schedule: - Traditionally, most offices work 9 to 5 during the day. But operational or other requirements have led to shift system of working when work continues day and night. 9-5 office is generally having one lunch break for ½ an hour. Further there is a system of casual leave and annual leave, which allows the employees to attend to his personal works, pursuits or go on recreational leave travel. Friendly schedule and flexibility, that allows the employee to attend to his family and personal matters are likely to increase happiness quotient.

(d) Future progression: - It is human nature to grow and progress in life and so do in one’s job or career. Hence, not only there should be long term laid down system of for progression, which of course, is accompanied by increase in salary, powers, responsibility etc, but also the evaluation method should be fair. If evaluation is unfair or bias, the employees are likely to be unhappy.


(e) Other causes: -The other causes that are not major but still cause unhappiness in workplace include uncomfortable environment, office conflicts, delays in handling personnel matters and unresponsive management.

4. Keeping happiness in the workplace should not only mean happiness for the workfolk, but also satisfaction and happiness for the managers, the suppliers and the customers. A happy workplace keeps the individual happy and healthy, increase the productivity, commitment to work, reduces the stress and tension of the management, contributes to happy family and ultimately to a happy, healthy and richer society at large. Happiness in the work place reduces absenteeism and sickness leave. A happy workplace makes the individual happy both at office and at home. The point, I am going to make is that keeping the workplace happy, all the beneficiaries, the individual, the employers and also the government should work. But it is not an easy job. Research is showing that in western countries, in spite of better pay packs, modern amenities in the workplace, free tea and lunch and bonuses, happiness level does not go much up.

5. You are to run the show! You are affected. You will have to do it all. You should realise that work is worship and the workplace is the temple of worship. It is responsible for providing you bread and butter. You are therefore also responsible for contributing to building a happy workplace. Following tips are likely to help in this direction.

(a) Learn to love your workplace: - To be happy and joyful, first and foremost, learn to love your workplace. At least find and take interest in some areas of your work and learn to derive satisfaction from that.

(b) Learn to perform your best: - Try to excel in your field of working. Keep abreast of things and do your part efficiently. This will give you satisfaction and may attract recognition and appreciation from your employers.

© Learn to understand your boss: - If you think your boss does not understand, learn to see things in his line of thinking, his situation, his constraints and discuss the issues as often as possible.

(d) Learn to live now: - Certain things in the workplace may not be favourable at the moment. But there is no guarantee that the conditions will change for the better. Or, may be, conditions are favourable at present. But, there is no guarantee that it will continue for long. Hence learn to see the positive side of things happening and be happy at the moment.

(e) Learn to be kind: - Secondly, think of others who are working with you. Be kind and fair to your colleagues and other visitors in the same way you wish others to behave with you.

(f) Strike a balance of things: - If you find the job too much against your life’s values and ethics, but you are not in a position to quit, learn to strike a balance. There may be something, which is good like the salary or the location of the workplace. Concentrate on that for your sticking to the job and still be happy for the overall requirement.

(g) Keep your family life happy: -You may belong to those executives who, in the pursuit of happiness, join the rat race for status, power or position and find at the end that it was all at the cost of the joys of your family life and peace of mind. If you are striving for happiness, you will have to bring about a balance. Money, status or comforts, the so-called life styles or position will not bring you happiness. But a happy family will do. Learn to give more time to family and do all to keep family happy.

(h) Look also for greener pasture: - Another tip to keep you happy is to learn to forget about the bad side of the workplace by making good use of your leisure time by using it in pursuing hobbies or social activities of your interest.

(i) Look for happy folk: - Mix with those who are of positive disposition and share each other’s problem. Avoid gossip. Take conflicts as a normal part of life and appreciate the constructive role it plays.

(j) Learn to celebrate: - Life is to celebrate. Celebration is inborn to human beings. Celebration makes us happy, healthy and cheerful. Celebration is as old as human culture. Every family, every culture, every community and even nations celebrate. The innate reason is to make ourselves happy and joyful. All organisations including government offices also celebrate on one occasion or the other. We have so many national holidays for the purpose. The organisations have welfare units. Such units should find more and more occasions to celebrate. Annual sports and cultural activities should also be encouraged. Even the families and the children of the employees should be called to participate in such programmes. It may not affect the work much. On the other hand, it would surely keep the folk happy and increase their efficiency.

(k) Learn to smile: -Learn to smile yourself and let others smile. Encourage people greeting one another when they arrive in the morning. If you are missing some of the people, why not make a round of the workplace to greet and share their joys and sorrows. At the end of the day, similarly, exchange cheerful good byes.

(l) Learn to enjoy within: - Above all, to keep you joyful, try not to depend upon external conditions. Do not wait for external conditions to change to make you happy. Real happiness comes from your inner mind. Learn to develop that inner serenity. When you cultivate happiness and enjoy the situations (good or bad) your brain start producing more of positive chemicals to strengthen your happiness. With consistent practice happiness will gradually replace your unhappiness. Of course, this requires constant contemplation and practice.

6. Role of Governments and organisations: - The Government of Bhutan conceived the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) (Bhutan 2020) and recognised that GNH is more important than GNP. The International Institute of Management (IIM) (http://www.iim-edu.org/) brings out white papers addressing emerging challenges and opportunities. In its Policy White Paper, the “The American Pursuit of Unhappiness Gross National Happiness (GNH)—A New Economic Metric” by Med Yones, provides an analysis of mental and emotional health liabilities produced by the current American socio-economic system. While this paper is written for the United States government, the analysis and recommendations may be applicable to most countries. It says that mental and emotional well-being of citizens improves their performance and broadens the intellectual, physical and social resources of a nation. Researches have found that happy people have better health habits, lower blood pressure, stronger immune systems and higher endurance levels. They cause less stress on the national healthcare system. Citizens with better emotional and mental health are easier to relate to and work with, tend to better decision makers, are more creative, and outperform peers in problem-solving, innovation, persistence and productivity. It says that like most world governments, the US Government’s main concern is economic growth. They have metrics to monitor your money: they use metrics such as Gross National Products (GNP) and consumer confidence to monitor and track economic health. But do they use a metric to measure people’s own well-being? No. Being happy is a product of personal development and social evolution. After all, governments are made of people, and politicians themselves suffer from the system in the same way as others. Without discounting the value of the modern political, socio-economic and educational systems, the reality is that our current socio-economic system is not designed to contribute to our happiness and in fact sometimes works against our well-being. In its recommendations in regard to work, it says that government can institute new employment laws to promote life and work balance and to guarantee a healthy (mental and physical) work environment. Further a smart corporate policy will ensure the development of its management team to transform an alpha-dominating/intimidating leadership style into a coaching leadership style with better work and relationship ethics.

7. The above finding is a clear indication that the governments and the organisations should study the subject further with a view to bringing about necessary changes in the work culture. Happiness is becoming the buzzword of our times. In 1940s and 1950s, the governments were trying to build Welfare States. Today they should look for building Happiness States.