The positive link between Happiness and Productivity

The conventional management thinking is that if we pay workers enough, they

will be productive. But as more industrial psychology research is done, we find that
there is a significant relationship between a workers happiness and their productivity at
work.
A recent research from the University of Warwick led by its Economics
department has concluded that happiness made people 12 percent more productive
while unhappy employees are 10 percent less productive. The research team said: We
find that human happiness has large and positive causal effects on productivity. Positive
emotions appear to invigorate human beings.
Professor Oswald from University of Warwick said that companies like Google
that invested in employee support and satisfaction has led to more to increased
productivity, which in Googles case is 37%. This finding shows that simple financial
incentives are insufficient to produce highly productive employees.
Shawn Anchor, author of the book, The Happiness Advantage, has found from
his research that the brain works so much better when a person is feeling positive. This
allows the person to be smarter and more creative during work. Hence the positive link
between Happiness and Productivity. He adds that happiness leads to greater levels of
profits for companies that invest highly in the welfare and happiness of their workforce.
Some easy ways for workers to boost happiness at their workplace include
helping coworkers, meditating for at least two minutes and reflecting on three things to
be grateful about.
A research done by Harvard professors Phil Stone and Tal Ben-Shahar found
that students with strong social support at school and home showed high levels of
happiness and a strong ability to counter stress. It can therefore be translated into the
workplace. Workers that have positive relationships with their coworkers are able to
boost their levels of happiness and perform better during high stress situations. This
shows that organizations that cultivate good working relationships inside their
organization will benefit from increased productivity from their employees.
As a result of this study, this leads to the proposition that happier employees
make better leaders. According to Alexander Kjerulf, founder of Woohoo Inc. and is the
organizations chief happiness officer, happiness is the ultimate productivity booster.
By having happy employees, they can make better decisions and are more creative,
and they can manage their time better, all of which are important traits and skills of good
leaders. In addition, research has shown that when workers are happy, they become

better collaborators and work better towards common goals. This benefits firms that
utilizes project teams.
According to a Gallup survey, only 13 percent of workers are engaged at work.
This means workers do not enjoy their work. This costs US companies $450 billion to
$550 billion annually. However, this also presents a big opportunity for companies to
boost company performance and employee productivity by investing in their welfare and
improving workplace happiness. However the question of how much organizational
resources to devote to improve workplace happiness still remains. There remains the
research opportunity to find out what are the most effective business practices out there
that boosts employee happiness.