Six-step methodology shows the way to happiness

There are six essential measures of the happiest places to work. The WorkL methodology of identifying the best places to work is a score based on the six criteria.

Enter the awards for The Australian Best Places to Work and find out if your organisation is among the happiest places, measured by six criteria

There are six essential measures of the happiest places to work. The WorkL methodology of identifying the best places to work – which are also the happiest places to work – is a score based on the six criteria.

1. Reward and recognition

Everyone craves recognition of their efforts and worth, with this being a core emotional driver. While financial reward is clearly important, the need for recognition is typically undervalued. This subject is explored in the book “Honours Versus Money”, which examines how employees can be motivated by receiving awards and honours, though not to the exclusion of monetary rewards.

One of the key drivers behind the success or failure of a reward and recognition program is the extent to which it is seen as being fair. Fairness (or “inequity aversion”) is another important emotional driver: people have an inherent and deep-seated dislike of unfairness. This applies not only to themselves feeling like they are being treated unfairly but also when they can see others being treated poorly.

This leads to the third emotional driver relevant to reward and recognition which is relativity: people think in relative rather than absolute terms so they can feel they are being treated unfairly if they are paid less than their peers, even if in absolute terms they are paid well. Given the combination of the fairness and relativity effects, there is an expectation that people who work harder or have more responsibility are rewarded accordingly.

In the WorkL Workplace Happiness survey, reward and recognition is captured using three questions:

● I am happy with the hours I work.

● I am fairly paid.

● I am recognised when I do something well.

2. Information sharing

An important emotional effect which information sharing aims to measure is ambiguity aversion. Essentially, people don’t like uncertainty and this negative feeling is exacerbated if they feel that other people, such as their manager, know more than them. This latter effect is known as information asymmetry: where one party is believed to have more information available to them than another, this creates mistrust. Information can be equated to power, so sharing information can be seen as sharing power and creating a more even playing field. 

Note the link here with fairness: if one person or group has less information than another, this can be seen as unfair. Similarly, it can be seen to be unfair if someone feels as though they don’t have access to all the information they need to do their job effectively. This emotional effect can exacerbate any actual information deficit.

The WorkL workplace happiness survey includes four questions related to information sharing:

● Information is regularly and openly shared with me.

● I have enough information (and training) to do my job well.

● My views are heard at work.

●I understand the organisation’s plan.

3. Empowerment

Employees feel empowered when they believe they can make a difference. This is important for employee productivity because people need to feel empowered in order to push themselves into trying something different. The New Economics Foundation highlights empowerment (people feeling involved and effective) as one of their seven principles for policymakers.

People hate feeling helpless and out of control and, when they have such feelings, they feel incapable of doing anything to change the situation. Conversely, when they feel in control, they can be highly motivated to change things for the better. This has implications on information, choice and the importance of participation.

The key message is the benefit of a participatory approach to decision-making in which employees’ views are heard and there is a culture of mutual trust and respect.

Reflecting this, in the Workplace happiness survey empowerment is measured based on three questions:

● I am allowed to make decisions.

● I am trusted to make decisions.

● I have what I need to do my job well.

4. Wellbeing

Wellbeing has a number of different aspects to it and, for example, the national wellbeing measure includes dimensions relating to personal wellbeing, relationships (social wellbeing), health (physical wellbeing), what we do (including work), where we live, and personal finance. The relevance of wellbeing is that not only is it a positive end in itself but there is also a relationship between wellbeing and economic efficiency. This relationship is perhaps more complex than it at first sounds since it works in both directions: a healthy economy can result in increased wellbeing as well as personal wellbeing potentially leading to greater productivity.

For employers a key point to note is that while wellbeing, happiness and productivity are linked, it is not a simple relationship and there are many confounding factors such as those captured by our six steps and the employee profiling questions.

In the Workplace Happiness Survey wellbeing is measured using four questions:

● I rarely feel anxious or depressed about work.

● I feel happy at work.

● My employer cares for my wellbeing.

● I am happy with my working environment.

The I rarely feel anxious or depressed about work question mirrors the ONS personal wellbeing question in which respondents rate how anxious they were yesterday on a 0-10 scale. Similarly, the I feel happy at work question mirrors in a work environment the ONS personal wellbeing question in which respondents rate how happy they were yesterday on a 0-10 scale.

My employer cares for my wellbeing starts to pick up the wider social aspects of work and the importance of relationships to mental health. In an employer-­employee (or manager-worker) relationship where the employer cares about personal wellbeing, it can be expected that the employee can be more honest about any issues they may be having, thus enabling action to be taken before the issue becomes a problem.

Finally, I am happy with my working environment picks up the impact of the wider context in which the employee works, including both physical aspects such as the place of work and softer (but equally important) cultural aspects. The significance of this question is that our feelings and behaviour are impacted far more by the environment than is generally recognised.

A dramatic example of the power of context is the impact of Covid on commuting patterns: prior to Covid about 5 per cent regularly worked from home, but Covid increased this to a peak of 49 per cent. While this is an extreme case, relatively minor changes in the workplace environment can still have an impact while it can also demonstrate that the employer cares about its staff. It is worth also bearing in mind that this effect works both ways so a change in the working environment, if not handled sensitively, can have a serious negative impact on employees.

5. Job satisfaction

There are many theories and ideas about job satisfaction, but little consensus. One reason for this is that what is meant by “job satisfaction” can vary, while to further complicate matters, what contributes to satisfaction and dissatisfaction is affected by the context. Nevertheless, one common factor is that employees tend to be more satisfied and therefore happier with their job if their core emotional needs are being met. These include the need for self-esteem, external recognition, positive social contact, and personal development. To this end, we measure job satisfaction using five questions:

● I am treated with respect.

● I enjoy my job.

● I have a good relationship with my manager.

● I am being developed.

● I work in a well run organisation.

6. Instilling pride

Instilling pride in employee engagement is paramount to fostering a vibrant and motivated workforce. When employees take pride in their work contributions, they become enthusiastic advocates for the organisation. This not only boosts morale but enhances productivity and innovation. When pride becomes a driving force behind employee engagement, organisations can unlock their full potential and achieve great results. To help achieve this, WorkL measures instilling pride using three questions:

● I do something worthwhile.

● I feel proud to work for my organisation.

● I’d recommend my friends and family to work for my organisation.

WEALTH OF INSIGHT FOR PARTICIPANTS

Organisations that enter the awards for The Australian Best Places to Work 2024 will receive a wealth of insight via an employee engagement dashboard on the WorkL platform, including:

● Overall engagement scores by different business units.

● Flight risk: a predictive measure identifying the percentage of employees who are most likely to leave. This is a key indicator for all organisations.

● Wellbeing risk: a predictive measure identifying the percentage of employees who are most likely to have poor wellbeing.

● Diversity and Inclusion indicator: engagement levels across majority versus minority groups.

● Net promoter score: the percentage of your employees who are going to promote where they work versus the detractors.

●Benchmarking data comparing your organisation to 55,000 others.

● Actions to improve your scores.