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Happiness - What does it mean for CR and productivity?
Friday 22nd April 2005

Fellow lunchers:
Nic Marks - New Economics Foundation.
John Swannick - LloydsTSB.
Jane Goodland - Henderson Global Investors.
Steven Cowden - Reed Elsevier.
Chris Smith - Standard Chartered.
Matt Gorman - BAA.

We were well-served by our two "stimulators" - Nic Marks from the New Economics Foundation and John Swannick from LloydsTSB.

Nic’s initial argument was that economics is a means to an end, the end being happiness or, more precisely, well-being. This is about quality of life, which is richer than happiness. It is about people’s experiences of life, what they think and feel about that experience.

Work is an important element of that experience, since most people spend a large part of their lives at work. This has now been recognised by the government’s sustainable development strategy, which is incorporating national indicators of well-being.

But measuring well-being is tricky, especially across cultural differences. It can’t be true, as the surveys seem to suggest, that the happiest French are less happy than Americans on benefit.

Simplifying somewhat, there are two key dimensions: pleasure and meaning. Some activities and experiences are pleasant but meaningless, others are meaningful but not necessarily pleasant, as the matrix below illustrates. Companies tend to measure job satisfaction, which is not the same as happiness.



Research suggests there are three broad influences on how happy people are feeling. Roughly half of the total influence is either genetic or comes from early childhood. Only 10% of the total influence is about money and other aspects of people’s circumstances (such as where they live). The remaining 40% stems from what are called "intentional activities" – such as hobbies, socialising, and work.

Well-being at work
At work, many factors affect well-being. Relationships with supervisors are particularly important, but other factors include the extent of autonomy, opportunities for development, job security, status, and pride in the organisation. Good jobs tend to be challenging, but not "stressful", although the term "stress" can be misinterpreted. The Health & Safety executive has identified several components, including status and support as well as personal relationships and job demands.

Long-term research among employees has found that engagement with the local community can be a big factor in job satisfaction. People want to be proud (or at least not ashamed) of saying who they work for when they go down to the pub. This suggests that the community involvement aspect of CR is important in employee satisfaction.

Other elements are:
- being enabled to do the job
- understanding your role and prospects
- your boss’ role and prospects
- and below all these aspects: pay

We had a vigorous discussion around the question of employers’ demands on employees’ time. On the one hand, many people don’t want to work less hours. On the other hand, employers find it difficult to value quality of work rather than quantity. And there is a tendency for employers to "steal people’s time" by wanting to involve them in corporate community activity outside normal work hours.

Lunch was not long enough to explore other interesting areas, such as the well-being of customers, who may be induced to spend by effective marketing – but who might be less happy as a consequence.

Read more about the New Economics Foundation well-being report and manifesto on: http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/z_sys_publicationdetail.aspx?pid=193

[Please make contact if you would like to join us for lunch].