Happiness and Productivity at Work

Good day Team,
I was going to post something about something else (name of topic withheld because it does not matter at this time) but decided to blog about something that has been a great concern of mine for a long time which is; raising the happiness level of staff at HPL. Those who have worked with me know that I have always proposed that if you cannot find a way to be happy at work, you should find something else to do because you cease to be productive when you are unhappy. I believe that you are in charge of your happiness and there is nothing much anyone can do to make you happy. Of course we are talking about happiness here not euphoria or glee.

So what is happiness? According to Dictionary.reference.com, happiness is “the quality or state of being happy”. Wikipedia defines it as “a mental state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy”. According Aristotle “Happiness depends on ourselves”.
Today’s post is to focus on the relationship between happiness and productivity at work. To be more productive at work, you have to like what you do. The single most efficient way to improve your productivity is to be happy at work. . You have to enjoy your work to yield great results and this also improves the happiness level in yourself and the people around you.
According to Alexander Kjerulf, (also known as the Chief Happiness Officer and author of “Happy Hour is 9 to 5”) there are 10 top reasons why happiness at work is the ultimate productivity booster. They are the following:
1: Happy people work better with others
2: Happy people are more creative
3: Happy people fix problems instead of complaining about them
4: Happy people have more energy
5: Happy people are more optimistic
6: Happy people are way more motivated
7: Happy people get sick less often
8: Happy people learn faster
9: Happy people worry less about making mistakes – and consequently make fewer mistakes
10: Happy people make better decisions

When you reflect back on when you were at the peak of productivity in the past, wouldn’t you say it was a time when you were working on something that made you happy, something that you loved to do? So obviously, there is a link between happiness at work and productivity. The question becomes whether being productive makes us happy or whether being happy makes us productive? As you might have ascertained, the link goes both ways even though we should say that it is strongest from happiness to productivity.
As Kjerulf put it, there are really two ways to get to be happy at work. They include the following:
1. Get happy in the job you have. There are about a million things you can do to improve your work situation – provided you choose to do something, rather than wait for someone else to come along and do it for you.
2. Find a new job where you can be happy.
But remember, nothing and nobody can make you happy unless you allow them.

I will be posting more on this topic in the future. Please stay tuned. If you would like to add/contribute to this topic, please feel free to do so. Thanks for reading this blog post and have a wonderful day.
Sincerely,
Theodora.