Most of our evidence based management in corporate life suggests that what counts is what is measured, and what is measured is what counts. Metrics drives behavior. In the corporate world, in addition to stock price, the focus on short term corporate earnings, revenue and profitability growth and earnings per share frequently leads to desired results.
Yet, in another polarity, Mastercard in it’s advertising campaign urges us that the best things in life are “priceless”. Yet how do we measure those things that are priceless? How much do they matter?
Does the delivery of a good life matter more than the delivery of more goods and services? Can we measure psychological and environmental wellbeing? If we could measure happiness, would it be “foo foo and fairy dust”? Why should business care if its workers are happy? And what do we mean by ‘happy’?
Well, the wellbeing and happiness metric keeps coming up as a topic of interest. The British Prime Minister James Cameron recently announced his governments plan to develop a sophisticated alternative to conventional economic metrics that attempts to measure the population’s psychological and environmental wellbeing.
In October, Facebook’s data scientists began using status updates to create a rough measure of the happiness expressed by English speakers in the United States, the UK, Australia and Canada.
A consultancy in Stockholm called Crisp uses a primary metric known as “Nöjd Crispare Index” (in english: “Happy Crisper Index” or “Crisp happiness index”). Scale is 1-5. They measure this continuously through a live Google Spreadsheet and update it once a month.
The feedback is noted and action plans are developed based on responses at company conference feedback sessions. Books on happiness by CEO ‘s of Zappos and Joie deVivre and psychologists are also emerging. In my recent work as a prof, faciliatator and consultant I find there is more expression of dissatisfaction in the workplace and a desire to contribute in making a difference. Recent surveys also indicate that average level of disengagement at work is 59%. Furthermore recent graduates express their disengagement from many current organizational environments based on hierarchy, status, rules and punishment.
According to a report by CEO Sarah Chiumento, although happiness is “a subjective concept, it’s not difficult to see that employees who judge themselves to be ‘happy’ in their work, will be more productive and perform better than those who admit to being ‘unhappy’.
Thus, staff that enjoy good working relationships, receive proactive career development, feel valued by the organization and well treated in times of change, are likely to be contributing the most to a business. Furthermore, they will be ambassadors for the organization, sending out positive messages to the outside community and enhancing the employer brand.”
Chiumento’s research is fairly consistent: the relationships we have at work have the biggest impact on our happiness, along with a sense that the work we do is interesting or meaningful. In a society where we often do not know our neighbors, and our families not easily accessible, it is not surprising that colleagues play an important role in making work more enjoyable. Only those who are very unhappy at work say that money would lead to happiness. Sixty-nine per cent of those who are very unhappy at work cite competitive salary as the main factor in making them happy.
Back to a question on measurement on a global scale: does the GDP metric still serve us our compass for the future or is best suited for another era? The GDP does measure the market of goods and services. The GDP does not measure the general progress in health and education, the condition of public infrastructure, fuel efficiency, community and leisure. One new metric that’s been attracting attention is the Happy Planet Index (HPI), which combines economic metrics with indicators of well-being, including subjective measures of life satisfaction, which have become quite sophisticated (HPI uses data from Gallup, World Values Survey, and Ecological Footprint). The index combines environmental impact with human well-being to measure the environmental efficiency with which, people live long and happy lives.
