Happiness at work and balls - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Happiness at work and balls - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Im not a huge fan of employee satisfaction surveys for a number of reasons: They measure job satisfaction, which, to me, is not what matters. What matters is happiness. Theyre no fun. Filling out 50 (or more) questions in an online survey is a chore not something people enjoy. Theyre so time consuming that companies typically perform them once a year. But what good is knowing how happy employees are once a year? What if theyre really unhappy now, and the next survey is still 7 months away? So how DO you measure happiness at work? This is exactly the question British social media agency Nixon McInnes were asking themselves: According to recent studies, happiness in the workplace is positively correlated with productivity, so as happiness increases, productivity follows suit, but when unhappiness gains a foothold, productivity and, ultimately, the health of the business, suffer. The first prototype, or version 0.1, has been live for a couple of months now and has provided some illuminating insight into our collective emotional condition (Tuesdays, for instance, are a regular, recurring low point in the week). So, what?s the ground-breaking technology that makes all this possible? The answer? A couple of buckets and a few dozen tennis balls. :) Exactly why not go low-tech and do it with balls. Tennis balls, that is. Every day as employees leave work they drop a ball into either the Happy or Unhappy basket. The balls are counted and the daily and weekly results are displayed on a monitor in the office: Yup thats all it takes. Its simple, so it actually gets done and its almost real-time because it presents daily data. An additional benefit is that it gives employees a chance to reflect every day on their happiness at work, which is also a good practice. Kudos! Have you tried something similar in your workplace? Would this work for you? Related posts Happiness at work at Nixon McInnes Top 5 business maxims that need to go Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related