Finding Happiness at Work: Can Happy Hour start at 9AM?
As you go through your day-to-day routine, it’s often hard to find a quiet moment and think about long-term goals. Sure, you may set up big picture career milestones you would like to achieve, but it’s the daily living that gets you there.
A recent blog on Fast Company looked at what it takes to find happiness at work. The author bases her assumptions from Jennifer Michael Hecht’s new book, The Happiness Myth. She says there are three kinds of happiness:
- Good day happiness –You made the time to go for a run, had a productive, accomplished day at work, and left work on time to meet your partner for a date. Your day was balanced and dare I say, perfect?
- Good life happiness – This goes a little deeper into meaning and substance. Are you challenged? Do the problems you’re working to solve ignite a deep passion within you? Does your work contribute with your talents and skills to the bigger picture?
- Peak happiness – Peak moments are connected with the “anticipation of awe.” When it comes to work, this may be when you finally are able to see the results of a project that has gone on for months, or maybe even years, and the difference it has made.
The idea of happiness was based around the idea of connection or, you could say, engagement.
When employees find themselves engaged with one another, work gets done more efficiently and people are able to inspire one another. One person interviewed mentioned workplace culture as a foundational element:
“The culture was so intensely alive…It was a culture that thrived on scrutiny, debate, evaluation, and criticism–all aimed at the work, not at each other.” – Tom Harbeck, speaking on the culture of Chiat-Day advertising agency in the 80s
When you see colleagues grasp meaning from their work, you’re encouraged to do the same. If you’re looking for ideas to kickstart engagement, keep in mind innovation, investment in employees and maybe even some organized chaos. These concepts integrate challenge into day-to-day tasks and provide humans with a sense connection to the larger world.
Are your employees happy? I’d love to hear your thoughts, so leave me a comment below. Or tell me on twitter.
