‘No need to make hard work of finding joy at office’

Raj Raghunathan, an Associate Professor at the University of Texas – McCombs School of Business, a popular blogger for Psychology Today, and the author a new book, If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy? speaks about what it takes to stay fulfilled in the office space.

Happiness is in the air, so to speak. Companies are increasingly interested in enhancing their employees’ well-being; even countries are getting interested in measuring their citizen’s happiness. When I was at ISB, Hyderabad, for my sabbatical (between July 2014 and August 2015), I came to know that both the Future Group, and Godrej were working on measures to boost the well-being of their employees.

It turns out that three things matter a lot to almost everyone: a sense of progress towards mastery – that is, feeling that you are good at doing something; a sense of belonging or connection with at least one other person; and a sense of autonomy – that is, not feeling like you are under someone else’s control. With this understanding, firms can do several things to promote at least one, if not all three. 

For example, they can assess the types of skill-sets that employees are intrinsically motivated to develop, and help them gain these. This can even start with helping employees figure out what specific skills they want to develop. Often, people don’t even know what skills they want to acquire. They simply show up for work and do what they are told.  Second, firms can help employees develop a sense of camaraderie with each other. 

Findings show that turnover (or churn) reduces by half when an employee’s best friend is from the same firm. So, helping employees forge great friendships with each other will help improve morale and productivity while simultaneously lowering turnover. 

One way to enhance such camaraderie would be to allow employees to do each other good turns. For instance, allow one employee to contribute towards another employee’s leave (a practice at Google). Hosting events (like talent night) that help employees highlight their hobbies/passions outside of work can also help. 

Finally, to enhance autonomy, findings show that employees need to be given concrete goals, but be given the freedom to accomplish these goals in the way that they choose. This gives them the right amount of freedom, while also providing them direction. 

A Forbes magazine survey in 2013 reported that twice as many employees are dissatisfied with their jobs than are satisfied. Most people make the mistake of resigning themselves to this fate, assuming that they are powerless to change things. 

And among those who do wish to correct this situation, many make the mistake of quitting their well-paying job one fine day to pursue their passion. The best way to go about transition from a job that’s meaningless into one that’s more fulfilling, requires more finesse. 

It requires identifying, what experts call your “element” (the intersection of what you are good at and what you enjoy doing), spending just a few hours a week connecting with people who appear to be doing the type of work that you believe will nurture your element, and over time, say, 5-10 years – transitioning from your current job into the one that you find fulfilling.