“Happiness is no longer a luxury, it is a factor of global economic growth”.
Ban Ki-Moon, former Secretary General of the United Nations
Being “well” does not mean being happy at all costs, nor in perfect health. Wellbeing is not the opposite of unhappiness or ill-being, it is rather its complement, inseparable and united.
According to a Hackathon on “Wellbeing at work”, here are some activities that have been classified as having no impact on wellbeing at work: gym membership, team building activities, foosball table, yoga classes, satisfaction survey, excessive attention paid to employees, unaccompanied training, happy events, being only in the support and encouragement, open spaces, fruit baskets, breakfasts with the management committee or even artificial plants.
Does that mean anything to you? Wellbeing is linked to different factors: health, social or economic success, pleasure, self-realisation, harmony with ourselves and with others. It is also one of the main aspirations of Health and Safety Managers. If employees simply feel good at work, they will be more innovative, more productive, more connected to their employer and thus, health issues and accidents will be reduced. It seems mathematical, right? However, striving for wellbeing does not mean rejecting discomfort and that is the art of talking about wellbeing in organisations.
What about happiness and pleasure?
But the words are confusing. Our society seems to maintain the confusion between the meaning of pleasure, happiness and wellbeing. And its the same in the corporate world: we referred to pleasure at work in the years 1990-2000, happiness at work in the 2010s and now we talk about wellbeing at work. But are we still talking about the same thing? What are the differences between these terms?
Happiness is a lifelong goal, while wellbeing is more immediate and reachable. Rousseau had asked the question as early as the 18th century; how can we achieve happiness when happiness “is too constant a state and man is too mutable a being for one to suit the other.”
Benoit Heilbrunn, French author of the book “L’obsession du bien-être” defines happiness as follows: it is the opposite to comfort, it’s the adventure, the discovery, taking risk, having a choice. He writes: “Unlike happiness, which brings appeasement, pleasure is exciting (…). Pleasure is provided by substances, happiness not. Pleasure often leads to addictions, while we are not talking about addiction to happiness. Finally, pleasure is caused by dopamine and happiness by serotonin. And there we go again, referring to one of my favorite topics: hormones. And as surprising as it may seem, hormones (for pleasure and happiness) are inseparable from the corporate world. See the article on Happy Hormones, essential for business performance here.
The fundamental difference between wellbeing, pleasure and happiness at work is that it is more of a state of mind than a goal or a quest. Feeling good at work does not mean NOT having negative emotions, not being sick, not being able to express your frustration, your anger, your fear. Feeling good at work does not mean having to always be positive, optimistic, and happy. In both China and Japan, negative emotions are considered part of life, just like positive emotions. Sadness, for example, is not an obstacle and there is no pressure, as in Western countries, to always have to be happy, smile, play a role and show that ‘it’s all good’ when nothing is going well. Have you ever tried to answer ‘not great’ to your colleagues question: “how are you doing?” Few people, and even fewer colleagues, are really able to hear and welcome such an answer, and then act accordingly.
Wellbeing at work is also that, being able to come with our full self to the office, our weaknesses, our sufferings, our illness sometimes, without barriers, without wearing a mask (well, not lately but we hope that this will change soon), and to be accepted as we are. And there we could say that we have achieved “wellbeing”, when just being yourself is possible. I think everyone can see how far we still have to go.
Chief Happiness Officer (CHO)
In organisations where happiness and pleasure at work are on the agenda, we see Chief Happiness Officers (CHO) emerging.
The mission of the CHO is to promote wellbeing at work, to improve friendliness within the organisation, but above all to give more meaning to employees. Born in the United States (Google, startups, etc.), this new profession is slowly developing in Europe. Its underlying objectives are simple: avoid turnover, improve productivity and efficiency, reduce absenteeism and increase engagement and attractiveness.
In Switzerland and in France, the role is rarely a full-time one, and the Chief Happiness Officer generally holds another position, often in Human Resources.
What is interesting to notice is that a CHO training lasts about a week and covers topics such as:
- The scientific bases of work performance: link between health, happiness, commitment, and performance
- From psychosocial risks to caring and respect at work
- Consistency with the values, meaning, culture and vision of the company
- The impact of leadership
- Individual and collective emotional intelligence
- Internal communication.
Hiring a Chief Happiness Officer is, beyond the actions, a strong signal sent to your employees and to your management. It is an acknowledgment of potential HR issues. It is also a way to show you have a caring management and you want to empower your teams with respect and without authority. By the way, did you know that there are over 1,500 Certified CHO on LinkedIn?
However, by having a CHO in your organisation, do you think it’s going to ensure positive mental health, wellbeing, happiness and especially performance? The answer is not that simple. So yes, it is a good strategy to have a person dedicated to the wellbeing and happiness of the employees, but only if the culture, the leadership style and the working environment are already a minimum aligned with the principle. If not, your CHO will struggle to launch initiatives and programs that no one will buy into, and all of this will simply be counterproductive.
In fact, it is neither the Health & Wellbeing Managers, nor the Chief Happiness Officers who are ultimately responsible for these key topics. In an ideal world, whether you are CEO, manager, leader, or employee, you are responsible for your own happiness, health and wellbeing and you have the responsibility to NOT negatively impact on your colleagues’ happiness and wellbeing.
And I can’t end this article without talking about resilience, especially these days. Resilient teams – in an organisation that takes care of its people – are more efficient and productive than happy teams.
Therefor, if you want to invest energy and money on your people, focus on resilience, creativity, emotional agility, empathy, flow, and meaning for your teams, your leadership, your organisation, rather than focusing mainly on happiness at work.
