Why Happiness is Serious (and what this means for workplace happiness)

I’ve been a Boo for seven years. Which is a bit of a watershed moment because from this point on, I’ve been part of Boo’s history for longer than Boo existed without me. For most of those seven years my job title was Happiness Ambassador (…the only one in the world, I believe). Recently I was promoted to Director of Happiness. Now, these both might sound like unserious job titles. But I’m going to tell you why I think it’s actually very serious indeed and why this matters for workplace happiness.

At Boo we have quite a lot of what is known as “Woo.” There is a test for Woo, and we’ve been tested and we’ve got a lot of it. We’re bubbly and cheerful and optimistic. We say “Brilliant!” and “Awesome!” and “Yay!” But recently I’ve been wondering… how well does our approach hold up when we bad things happen?

Not “lessons learned” hard. I mean like un-fixable hard. Can I still call myself an authority on Happiness when there is real hardship all around? Can we still Woo in the face of a terrible world?

Here’s where I’ve landed.

There’s no escaping hardship. Some things are just hard. So I’m not here to tell you how to be happy all the time. I’m suggesting:

Don’t make things unnecessarily hard.

In a workplace context, I’m going to share one tip for employers and one tip for employees.

Leaders first

Really simply.

If you can smooth a path… smooth it.

So much that makes us miserable at work isn’t inevitable. It’s process. Rules that nobody has questioned for years. “That’s how we’ve always done it.” If a rule makes working life harder – without making life better for your customers or service users – why does it still exists?

Often nobody’s looked because they don’t see the benefit. The benefit is happier employees. Happier employees are more loyal, more productive, less absent. These things are proven. What’s unproven is the hypothetical fear that if you’re flexible and forgiving with your employees they will take advantage and stop performing well.

So ask:

what’s getting in the way of people’s happiness? Does it have to be there?

If not…get rid of it. If you can smooth a path…smooth it.

Now, what if you’re not in control of the situation? Maybe you’re in a job you don’t enjoy, for whatever reason, but it’s where you need to be right now. Or maybe this job is your calling and it’s the system or poor leadership that’s making it unbearable.

One thing research tells us contributes strongly to happiness at work is meaning. Purpose. People sometimes even rate meaningful work as more important than salary.

Re-connect with your purpose. If this is your calling…ask yourself:

Why did I choose this?

What did I hope to do?

Is that how I’m showing up?

And if it’s not what you always dreamed of doing when you were a child… Create Purpose

Imagine your job is packing bananas into boxes on a production line – not your dream but it’s paying the bills. On the other hand, you feel as if you’re spending the houses of your life doing a monotonous task to help someone else make money. You might set yourself a challenge that for one shift, or even for the next fifteen minutes, you’ll be the greatest banana box packer who ever lived.

I know this sounds a bit like “Keep your head down.” “Don’t question anything.” “Work harder for the man.” But what actually happens is this: you start to create meaning and satisfaction inside a rigid system that you can’t currently change. You start to benefit. You start to feel as if what you’re doing matters.

Sometimes you might get into what’s known as a flow state – where everything feels smooth and effortless, when you’re just winning at whatever you doing. Psychologists describe it as the most content humans can be.

We can’t always be happy. We can’t always make people happy.

But we can stop making them unnecessarily unhappy. We decide not to make work harder than life has already made it. We can stop making life harder than life has already made it.

Smooth the path. For other people. And for yourself.

Why Happiness is Serious (and what this means for workplace happiness)