Why should employers take steps to help make their employees happy? Two reasons.

First, because it’s the right thing to do. A 2001 study showed that Americans spend more than twice as much time at work as in leisure, and for many people, their work dominates their life. So happiness at work is critically important for people’s general happiness.

Second, employee happiness is GOOD FOR BUSINESS. Research shows many ways in which happy employees out-perform their less happy peers.

A note of caution: this research is pretty strong stuff. It seems very harsh toward the less-happy people. As I read it, I kept thinking, “Life isn’t fair. The folks who are already feeling great are getting all the benefits, while the less-happy people are getting sick more often, getting worse work evaluations, and making fewer friends.”

Another note of caution: remember that correlation is not causation. It might be that happy people perform better because qualities that tend to make a person happier (such as extraversion, emotional stability, and energy) make a person perform better at work. So it’s not the happiness per se that makes a person perform better, but other factors of personality.

Also, there’s an issue of feedback. For example, people generally like happier people more than less-happy people. So do managers rate employees more highly just because they like them, even if less-happy people might be performing just as well? Could be.

That said, why do happy people do better at work?

Teamwork
Happy people are good for teams. People like being around happier people much more than less-happy people. Happy people are perceived to be more friendly, warm, and even more physically attractive.

Also, research shows that happy people tend to be more cooperative, less self-absorbed, and to be able to offer the empathy needed in close relationships. They’re more willing to help other people—say, by sharing information or pitching in to help a colleague. Then, because they’ve helped others, others tend to help them.

Leadership
Happier people are viewed as more assertive and self-confident than less-happy people, and better at public speaking. They perform better on managerial tasks, like leadership and mastery of information.

Creativity and problem-solving
Positive moods improve problem-solving and creativity by making it easier for people to think with flexibility and complexity. Laughter, too, helps people think expansively.

Studies show that when people are put in a good mood, they choose higher goals, do better, and persist longer.

Studies also show that happy people will search for new answers to problems, while depressed people are more concerned with avoiding errors (of course, for certain jobs, this could be an advantage).

Emotional contagion“Emotional contagion” is a strong psychological effect in which we “catch” the happy, sad, or angry moods of others.

An employee in a happy, energetic mood will help boost the moods of others—
particularly important, obviously, when that person is engaged with customers, clients, patients, or a work team.

Unfortunately, negative moods are more contagious than positive moods, and one crabby employee can trigger a wave of bad feelings. And because people try to steer clear, unhappy people find it harder to be effective.

Absenteeism and turn-over
At the same time that happy people are more likely to show superior performance, they’re also less likely to show counterproductive behaviors like burnout, absenteeism, counter and non-productive work, work disputes, or retaliatory behavior.

Health-care costs
Happy people tend to be healthier than unhappy people. They have a stronger immune function. They have more tolerance for pain. They act in healthier ways than unhappy people do—e.g., by exercising more and eating more healthfully.

But here’s a question. If all this is true, how do you explain, for example, Hollywood and Wall Street?

These folks are being paid a ton of money to be creative, to take educated risks, to work with large numbers of other people, and to perform at a very high level. But are their workplaces models of happiness, support, and encouragement? Nope.

So the question is – why? Do those employers know something we don’t about getting the best work out of people through stress, competition, and fear? Or does it take so much more discipline and effort to sustain happy workplaces that these industries can’t be bothered? Or is happiness so individual that looking at a particular industry doesn’t tell us much about the individuals and group working within it? Or are the people in those jobs happy despite (or because of) the nature of their workplaces?

Hmmmm….

Tomorrow I’m going to post about the steps that employers can take to help boost employees’ happiness.

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: Six tips for how to fight right in front of children.

Every couple fights.

Research shows that these conflicts fall into two categories: those that can be solved, like what movie to see on Saturday night, and those that can’t be solved, like how to spend money. Unfortunately, almost 70% of conflicts fall into the irresolvable category.

Since we know we’re going to fight, it’s important to learn to fight right. Studies reveal that how a couple fights matters more to the health of their relationship than how much they fight.

A couple with children has an additional pressure on their fighting style, because they owe it to their kids to maintain a certain level of civility, even if they’d take a no-holds-barred approach in private.

Here are some tips about how to fight right in front of children:

1. Don’t get physical — obviously, not hitting, but also no throwing things, breaking things, or slamming doors.

2. Don’t criticize your spouse with sweeping generalizations, like “Your father never thinks about anyone but himself.” Instead, criticize specific actions, like “It really annoys me when your mother forgets to put gas in the car.”

3. Children are highly attuned to their parents. Don’t think they won’t notice the “silent treatment.”

4. Don’t ask your kids to tattle on a parent, or to choose a side.

5. Don’t expose your kids to inappropriate information about finances, sex, previous behavior, job worries, etc.

6. Obviously, sometimes you will fight in front of your kids. Try to do so only if you’re going to resolve the fight in that conversation. That way, you show your kids that people can fight and come to resolution.

Even better – and I’m making a big effort to do this when I fight with the Big Man when our children are around – is to joke around and be affectionate, even during a fight. This is practically impossible, but when I can manage, it makes fighting much more pleasant for me and the Big Man, as well as for our daughters.

I’m back at home after my sister’s wedding in Kansas City. It was a perfect weekend.

My mother did a tremendous amount of work for this wedding to give it a lot of beautiful, original, labor-intensive touches. I have an insatiable craving for the gold stars of praise and appreciation myself, so I kept giving gold stars to my mother – saying how wonderful, beautiful, thoughtful, well-organized, etc. etc. it was. And so did my sister.

I was struck by the fact, however, that my mother seemed only mildly gratified by this recognition. She was focused on getting everything done as best she could, and on making sure that everyone had a great time – especially the bride and bridegroom.

Which made me think about the duty to be happy. For my mother, it was far more important that my sister be happy with the wedding than that my sister be grateful or appreciative. Fortunately, that was easy. My sister loved every minute.

But what if she hadn’t been happy with the wedding? What if she’d been disappointed by the flowers, by the way the room looked, by the way the wedding turned out?

She should’ve acted exactly the way she did act: ecstatically happy.

How important it is to be easy to please! We pride ourselves on our critical faculties, our discernment, the subtle touches we use to express our personalities…but it’s far more difficult to be enthusiastic, to approve, to enjoy.

And of course, my mother had a duty to be happy, too. If she’d been snappish or frantic all weekend, because she was trying to control every little detail, she would’ve dragged down the mood.

It was tough, because my mother wanted everything to be perfect. I noticed that she kept repeating certain comments throughout the weekend, to keep herself calm.

“Often, it’s the things that go wrong that make the best memories, later.”
Someone makes a wildly inappropriate toast. The cake slides to the floor. The bride steps out of her shoe as she walks down the aisle. Later, this moment will be a wedding highlight.

“I’ll notice, but no one else will notice.”
My mother has an eye that astonishes me. As we neared the actual event, she kept reminding herself that other people wouldn’t even register details that she saw as less than perfect.

“Done’s done.”
At a certain point, my mother just let events unfold. She was able to have fun and enter into the moment instead of worrying about every little thing. This is very, very tough if you’re a perfectionist.

Research shows that your thinking style makes a real difference in your happiness. If my mother had instead been repeating phrases like, “If XYZ goes wrong, the wedding will be ruined,” “People can never do anything right,” or “We’re always unlucky with weather,” she would have been far less happy, even if the wedding had happened in the same way.

My sister and I both had this Raymond Carver poem printed in the Order of Services for our weddings.

Hummingbird

Suppose I say summer,
write the word “hummingbird,”
put it in an envelope,
take it down the hill
to the box. When you open
my letter you will recall
those days and how much,
just how much, I love you.

Now, off to primp, then to the wedding…

I’m in Kansas City for my sister’s wedding this Saturday. I got here on Tuesday, and the bride-to-be arrived Wednesday. The Big Man and our girls arrive this afternoon.

It was strange. I realized that Wednesday night was probably the last night for a long, long time that the four of us – me, my sister, my mother, my father – would be alone together. After years and years in which that was our everyday pattern, now that’s really over. From now on, we’ll always be with various husbands and children, too. Which is fun and wonderful, but not the same.

Right now, it’s not remarkable at all (obviously) for the Big Man, the Big Girl, and the Little Girl and I to be hanging around our apartment.

That night was a reminder to me that although these cozy family days seem limitless, they aren’t.