“Find a job that makes you happy and you’ll never have to work again” Confucius
Happiness at work is a complex concept that should be considered a strategic asset in organizational management. Happy people work more efficiently, they’re more committed and more motivated; they usually have team spirit and tend to help each other more, contributing to a serene job environment and accordingly, to greater productivity.
Understanding what makes people become and remain happy at work was the objective of the ‘Happiness Works’ research project, launched four years ago by Horton International in Portugal. Dianova Portugal participated in the 4th edition of the research project, as a case study.
A questionnaire comprising 85 questions was used to measure each employee’s degree of happiness at work and in their specific work positions. 46 questions were related to the organization, 32 to the position they are in and 7 on the characteristics of each staff member.
Replies could be provided on a on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 scale (strongly agree). The survey would consider a collaborator as “happy” based on an average rating of 4 or more. It appeared that Dianova staff members are “almost” happy, with an average index of happiness at work of 3.8, i.e. a rating greater than the average index in other organizations, including social organizations which have been the subject of this survey.
These results demonstrate the importance of investing in human resources as Dianova did to increase staff members’ involvement and commitment to the organization’s mission and goals, whether for operational units and for the organization as a whole.
Interview with Georg Dutschke and Rui Martins on the results of the “Happiness Works 2014” survey (TV program “+Ciudadanía”)
Case Study “Happiness Works”
