8 Reasons Why the Employee Happiness Doesn't Drive Productivity

My point was that today's focus on happiness at work is just another distracting fad that will divert the necessary attention from the primary role of HR, which is to enhance employee productivity. Today, I give you a bit more to think about when it comes to happiness and commitment to your work environment.

A few positive actions you should take into consideration:

1. Collaboration is actually a more powerful goal:

Some of the happiness measures that you take can increase employee collaboration and give employees time to innovate. These two outcomes will have a large and positive impact on innovation.

2. Personalization matters when it comes to employees happiness:

Happiness is such an individual thing, so only a personalized solution for each employee can be effective.

3. Hire self-motivated and hardworking people:

Instead of hiring already happy people, a superior alternative would be to hire driven people — ones who are self-motivated and who see the glass is half full. Without any benefit of stimulation or happiness, these people will be constantly searching for ways to increase efficiency, productivity, and innovation.

Before hiring anyone, survey your top candidates and ask them what they expect in a great job. You will find, as I do, that the best performers and innovators are concerned about the work and the possibility of making a difference. The advantages of happiness don't even show up on their short list of attraction factors.

4. You must actively reduce dissatisfaction:

Happiness does not create productivity, but a disgruntled employee is bound to act disorderly. In general, they will be sick, be late, and be absent more often. Also, if they are really angry and dissatisfied, then surely the employees will not volunteer to work overtime, and they intend to quit more. Therefore, it makes sense to have a program to help managers identify and minimize individual employee dissatisfaction.

More negatives to consider if you focus on happiness:

If you still don't believe you should be wary of the happiness rush, here are some other negative factors to consider:

1. Managers need to see value of making the employees happy:

If you expect individual managers to value employee happiness, you need to show them the value and business impact of having happy employees. Next, you need to measure and reward managers for increasing happiness in their teams, otherwise your efforts to create happiness levels across the company will have little real effect.

2. Surveys are expensive:

Most underestimate the cost of happiness surveys, especially the time it takes for employees to complete surveys. In addition, the time spent analyzing, interpreting, presenting results, and finding solutions can be substantial.

3. Happiness perks can hinder teamwork:

Some happiness perks like a free shared meal have the added benefit of increasing teamwork. Other things like isolation rooms, break rooms, nap rooms, and massages can really reduce group cohesion.

4. Happy solutions can inadvertently lead to disappointment:

In many cases, employees will be dissatisfied due to structural issues, such as compensation, communication, or limited growth opportunities. In these cases, you can really make them angry and frustrated when you offer cool perks like exercise equipment and games. Indeed, taking the wrong last steps can reveal to your employees that human resources and company management are completely unaware of the real problems that are bringing them down.

5. Happy people can still quit:

If you conduct delayed post-exit interviews, you may find that other happy employees may still leave for reasons that are often not explained determined in the pursuit of happiness. It could mean that your employees are satisfied with the company, but still want more pay, new opportunities, and challenges.

6. Unions are skeptical:

If you work in a union environment, unions often focus on job security and "money". This means that they are often suspicious of happiness benefits that are not stated in the contract.

7. Having it all doesn't guarantee happiness:

Business leaders somehow believe that providing employees with everything fun and exciting will make them happy. However, if you look at the experiences of most major lottery winners who have it all, you'll find that most are generally not happy when they win.

8. Other factors affecting happiness:

External factors such as an employee's family life, health, and economy have a significant impact on employee happiness. So, be careful not to blame yourself when employee happiness levels change. For example, if the unemployment rate increases by 50% and you do nothing, you can expect employee satisfaction to increase accordingly. Because in a bad economy, just having job security is enough to make many of your employees happier.

Final thoughts:

As with any significant employee program, putting someone in charge of happiness and using metrics to continuously improve it is essential if you are to have a high probability of success even if it's very small. Merely copying the benefits your competitors offer and letting your culture manage its own happiness is bound to lead to failure.

And if you decide to ignore this fad altogether, know that there are more than 20 factors that affect employee productivity, so focusing on one tangential factor simply can't have a great impact on increasing one's productivity. Having happy workers with a weak plan, insufficient tools, and no training will by no means produce positive business results.