By Arjun Buxi
ARE YOU HAPPY AT WORK?
Happy. That one word seems to be all we’re about… but why?
Is it because this emotion makes us feel…like we’ve arrived?
Funny enough, it is only recently though, that ‘happy’ has come to mean the experience of ‘contentment’, or ‘pleasure’. Before WWII certainly, it meant something very different.
Such as Child Labor Laws not being fully in place till 1938.
The Origin of Happy goes back to, of all things, Luck – as in ‘happenstance’ or ‘happening’. It is unclear if Happiness was simply rare, but what is clear that while one could experience happiness, making it come about was thought to be out of one’s control.
Until now.
THE HAPPY EMPLOYEE AS RESOURCE
Happiness of the Employee has more recently become a significant managerial goal. Entire philosophies of management like Holacracy – adopted by firms like Zappos – have come up to promote better workplace conditions and install “different mechanisms for processing tensions into actionable clarity.” The idea was that if work was more efficient, Communication structured and clear, with some transparency, we would have better work, and less stressful workplaces.
More than that, Happy is now the state Companies want their Employees in, not because they suddenly care about Employees as people, but more because a link has been made between employees engaging more with the work they do, then evangelizing the company and it’s product/service to the customers, thereby driving profits.
So, ‘Happy’ has moved from ‘Luck’ to ‘Contentment’ in our Lives.
In the workplace, though, it is defined by engagement in the work itself.
Engagement here, is not just ‘liking’ what one does, it is wanting to thrive at the work one does and be rewarded/recognized for the effort.
“I had this awesome team of smart, capable people who were energized by solving problems…It gives them a chance to be a hero and to flex their muscles. ”
From “Can Holacracy Work? How Medium Functions Without Managers”-FastCompany.Com
With that said, though, how does this engagement come about in Holacracy, or other systems like it?
WORKING IN CIRCLES
1. A chart for how Holacracy Circles work via Holacracy.Org
Instead of Linear Management, Companies like Medium and Zappos are using Function-Oriented Circles called Holons- they’re essentially task-groups focused on particular skills, departments or functions, such as Marketing. Don’t be mistaken though, they still report to someone, and the “CEO” Tony Hsieh is still called “Lead Link”. So it is important to know that there is a hierarchy, just not he typical top-down version.
Who’s in charge can vary based on the job at hand, – so in other words, you may be in-charge for Development (your expertise), but report to someone for Sales.
The big goal though, seems to be replacing traditional hierarchy with a Democratic engagement style, and give folks a Voice.
In other words, make them valued…and happy.
WHAT ACTUALLY MAKES US HAPPY AT WORK?
The Cynic in us might say, well, money, right? And that’s true…to a point.
A study came out that showed that achieving the Median Range Income of about $50,000 a year gives a great deal of contentment. Increases from there helped only until around $75,000 or thereabouts, after which we experience diminishing rates of return.
If we use this data and look at the ‘happiest’ and ‘unhappiest’ professions, there are some predictable results, and also some unpredictable ones.
Predictably, Security patrol (income around $27K) is less satisfying than a Software Job (around the $70-90K range)- money does matter, but also it is the low opportunity to improve and advance, or challenge one’s own abilities. An Executive Recruiter is lower ranked in this survey than a Database Administrator, despite similar incomes – the reason given is that with more and more technology dependency the tangible usefulness of a DBA’s efforts are higher and more wide-reaching. In other words, status and wider influence are big factors, income remaining constant.
With an emphasis on effectiveness, transparency, achievement and process, companies like Zappos are gearing to somehow combine the Work/Life Holy Grail: being Happy at work by being Happy with yourself as a productive, successful person, and bringing that satisfaction to the abode.
Historically, many offbeat managerial methods have been tried, but most have fallen by the wayside except the traditional strong hierarchical methods, usually because of too much unstructured work. Yet, the new-age managerial methods are less about ‘doing away’ with structure, and “more about making hierarchies fluid”. Along with the buzzword ‘engagement’, come linked buzzwords such as ‘social’ and ‘community’, and all of a sudden it’s like everyone wants to operate like a startup, using methods like Agile and Scrum to adapt larger organizations to this startup-friendly business ethos.
And so we realize somewhere, that while money and work structures are important, what really makes us ‘happy’- both in the sense of contentment and engagement – is achieving the thing that motivates socially, as people, and for leaders to tap into this resource to make the organization succeed.
Lo aa gaya main...
Author David Rock calls the SCARF set of orientation/motivations- Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness. As the names suggest, different people are motivated by importance (say of a job title), reassurance of their good progress, delegation of authority, socializing and equal treatment. Many may be a combination of each, or with one dominant trait.
In the end though, while systems of management are highly effective, they need the key ingredients of a strong mission, vision and objectives that cater to the SCARFmotivations, a strong human values leader that knows how to lead, delegate and relate with employees, and strong cultural-fit hires that resonate with this culture and follow it’s rules to create great results.
So there you have it. Your Happiness lies in engaging at work to Succeed, connecting socially to Live, and using a little bit of Luck along the way.
May you always be Happy.
