Member-only story
For people that care about this kind of stuff (**raises hand**), now seems to be kind of a landmark time in the “Intersection Of Happiness And Work” research/execution world. Will Davies wrote an article for The Atlantic in June on worker happiness (long and good), which frames some of the basic problems well:
Few private-sector managers are required to negotiate with unions any longer, but nearly all of them confront a much trickier challenge, of dealing with employees who are regularly absent, unmotivated, or suffering from persistent, low-level mental-health problems. Resistance to work no longer manifests itself in organized voice or outright refusal, but in diffuse forms of apathy and chronic health problems. The border separating general ennui from clinical mental-health problems is especially challenging to managers in 21st century workplaces, seeing as it requires them to ask personal questions on matters that they are largely unqualified to deal with.
Now Harvard Business Review has an article about “The Happiness Research We’re Ignoring,” including ideas like this:
Happiness doesn’t necessarily lead to increased productivity. A stream of research shows some contradictory results about the relationship between happiness — which is often defined as “job satisfaction” — and productivity. One study on British supermarkets even…
