FROM LANGUISHING TO EXPERIENCING JOY AT WORK
From languishing to experiencing joy at work
By Nanci Hogan, for ella forums
“People intrinsically seek joy. And joy connects people more powerfully than almost any other human experience.” *
Think for a moment. How are you and your teams feeling now as you have started back to work this September? Whether you’ve adopted a form of hybrid working, still are working virtually, and have people coming off furlough, what is the predominant mood of your employees, your organization, yourself?
In a keynote address I delivered in April at the ella 2021 annual conference (www.ella-forums.org)  about what our post pandemic futures might look like, I spoke about how many of us, and our organizations are languishing.In my keynote address at the ella 2021 conference in April on post pandemic futures, I spoke about how many of us, and our organizations are languishing. I referred to the article in the New York Times written by organisational psychologist and author, Adam Grant, about how many of us are languishing during this extended pandemic season. He refers to languishing as the neglected middle child of mental health. It is neither full-blown anxiety nor depression, but a meh feeling where we’re lethargic and it is hard to get motivated to do anything. He has since done a daily podcast about languishing on the topic which I’ll link to at the end of this blog
Today, I want to talk a little bit about joy at work which I think is the antidote to languishing for ourselves and our organizations, regardless of what the Covid-19 status is, pre, mid or post pandemic. As leaders, it is your responsibility to set the tone in your workplace, first as an example and, secondly, in shaping your organization’s culture. Because we spend at least a third of our waking life at work, it is reasonable that we enjoy work, and that work should bring us a measure of happiness and joy. As leaders of charities during Covid, how much joy at work are you experiencing? How much are your employees enjoying work?
How do we create and experience joy? What is it? Why is it important? How can we move from a meh work environment (at best), or a toxic one (at worst), to a culture that promotes joy and happiness for the employees that work there?
What is joy/happiness at work and why is it important?
Joy is a strong word. Many business writers use the word happiness at work instead. I prefer the word joy because it connotes a position of sheer wonder, awe and playfulness and childlikeness, in response to the world we’ve been born into and the life we’ve been given.
Joy is a perspective, an attitude, and a capacity and skill that we can develop independent of our situation and circumstances whereas I think the word happiness is more dependent on external circumstances and things going well. Pursuit of happiness is illusory; rather we snatch moments of happiness throughout the day, week, and months and it usually catches us off guard. It is something we discover and uncover in unexpected moments. But, the articles refer to both, so I will refer to both in the resources at the end.
According to a Harvard Business Review article people “intrinsically seek joy. And joy connects people more powerfully than almost any other human experience.” (Lieu)
When I asked the question, what would contribute to joy at work in a recent Linked in post, the response was varied. One person said variety at work and the chance to do and learn new things each day at work gives them joy, and another person said that they experience joy at work when they are in the flow with their work and/or team members. A third person said it is the camaraderie they experience with their colleagues as they’re able to share and discuss both work and non-work-related things with good humour and a sense of fun. All of these are ingredients for cultivating joy in your lives individually, in your teams, and in your organization.
Why is it so important?
Joy at work or happiness at work, is the mark of a flourishing organization. There are a couple reasons why this is important. First, from a practical standpoint, joyful employees are 9% more productive overall. (Chowdhury)
They are healthier; more emotionally and mentally resilient which means spending less money on taking care of mentally and physically unwell employees. There is less absenteeism and less presenteeism (showing up for work physically but not being engaged at all in what one’s doing), and higher employee engagement overall which results in less turnover. Less turnover means investing less money in expensive HR recruitment. The book, Dying for a Paycheck by Jeffrey Pfeiffer, provides scientific evidence for how unhealthy, languishing or toxic work environments, contribute to poor mental (anxiety and depression) and poor physical health (heart attacks, diabetes) and early death of its employees. Caring for these employees is costly for the organization.
Secondly and most importantly, it is the right thing to do, morally and ethically. People are more than human resources, a cog in the machine. They are not one more impersonal element, like raw materials, financial capital, and technology.
They are human beings who deserve dignity and respect in the workplace as much as in any other sphere of society. Pfeiffer writes that “If we take seriously the fundamental sanctity and importance of human life and well being…there is a moral, ethical reason to be concerned about human health and well-being in the workplace…” (Pfeiffer, p 8) Others note that human happiness in the workplace is part of the broader human right to health, which according to the World Health Organisation includes peoples’ psychological as well as physical well-being. In other words, we have a duty of care to our employees and part of that is facilitating an environment where people can experience joy at work.
Finally, people who are experiencing joy rather than anger and fear, are working out of their frontal cortex rather than out of fear, which is based in their amygdala. Working from a place of joy frees them up to be more creative and innovative.
Some of the ingredients for the recipe for creating joy at work
There are four elements I want to draw your attention to below that most writers agree need to be in place for people to experience joy at work. They are some of the necessary ingredients as it were, if you were a master chef about to concoct a soup, called joy at work. There are others, but these are the ones most business writers and consultants would agree are the most essential ones and are the ones that have the highest impact in creating joy at work.
- Meaning and purpose at work
People experience much more job satisfaction, happiness, and joy at work if they feel that they are doing work that has meaning, purpose and significance. In fact, as we have seen, many people have changed careers and jobs during the pandemic because they want more meaningful work. The pandemic brought up existential issues, i.e. life is short, so what is the meaning and purpose of my life and how can I personally make a significant contribution/difference to the world? Individuals flourish to the extent they sense that they are working towards something meaningful; something that transcends their material day to day existence.
To what extent is your organization’s meaning and purpose clear? To what extent is your own and your employees own personal sense of meaning and purpose in alignment with that of the organization?
2. Psychological and Physical Safety
To what extent do people feel safe at work physically and psychologically is central to whether people will be able to experience joy at work.
Physical safety during the Pandemic is a crucial issue. Addressing employees’ physical concerns about their safety at work is paramount. How you genuinely listen to and address these concerns, whether through virtual, hybrid, or full-time physical working in the office, will have a huge impact on morale.
Do you have plans in place for returning to work that are equitable and fair, that are sensitive to employees’ unique situation (health, home life, age) as well as to their fears and concerns?
Psychological safety is more about trust, and whether they feel safe with you and their colleagues at work. Unsafe psychological workplaces are ones in which employees are discriminated against or bullied for their differences. Bullying is basically an abuse of power which includes sexual harassment and sexual abuse, racism, sexism, or other forms of bullying based on a person’s physical characteristics.
What is your safeguarding and whistleblowing policies? Do you have a no-tolerance for bullies’ culture?
It also means whether your employees talk to one another and to you and feel heard and listened to?
Is your culture one where it is safe to fail or disagree? Or are disagreements and failures swept under the table, the ever-present elephant in the room.
3. Job autonomy
Job autonomy is one of the most critical elements for people to experience joy at work. According to Pfeffer, having autonomy over one’s job, the ability to have freedom and choice as to how one exercises one’s role on a day-to-day basis, is more important to employees than additional pay. Nothing is more dispiriting and disempowering than to be micro-managed and not be trusted to execute one’s job well. Autonomy also pertains to flexibility and choice in terms of work and hours, and the ability to suggest changes in the workplace that contribute to increased productivity and better working conditions.
How much choice with respect to flexibility in hours, work, location, performing one’s role and the ability to suggest improvements do your employees have? Do they feel micro-managed or do they have a healthy level of job autonomy?
4. Camaraderie or team cohesion
The importance of camaraderie and team cohesion were first mooted by the military. How do troops fulfil difficult tasks in difficult circumstances? The glue that holds them together, other than sharing a common purpose as discussed in item one, is their sense of community and their love, commitment, and sense of responsibility to show up and do their best for their fellow comrades in arms. These units are so cohesive, that even years after a war ended, people will attend veterans’ reunions even up to 50 and 75 years later, to reminisce with their unit.
At the moment we can see this in different parts of the NHS. Despite the pressures and burn-out due to successive waves of Covid, part of the glue that holds many teams together, is the relationships that individuals have with their fellow health care workers deep in the Covid trenches. People may be tired and now hate what they do, but they will show up to work because they don’t want to let their colleagues down.
People flourish best when they experience belonging in relationships with one another in different communities starting with our immediate family. Our organisations are just one more community. Laughing, eating, celebrating birthdays, marriages, work milestones, and successes all help to build a sense of shared identity and community.
What are you currently doing to build a culture of community in your organization? What more could you do to build healthy teams with positive relationships in your organization?
None of the above is easy. It takes conscious and consistent hard work and dedication to build organisational cultures where individuals can experience joy at work. But given the implications for the health and wellbeing of the employees and for the organisation, it is something that cannot be neglected, especially in a time of this prolonged pandemic where people are languishing. In fact, we neglect them at the peril of our own health and the health of our organisations.
Below are some resources and references that might help you as you pursue joy at work. I am also available either as a coach or organisational consultant to help you develop your own sense of joy at work and to help you to begin developing a concrete plan about how you can begin implementing the recipe, with your own special sauce and ingredients added, to create a culture where joy at work is the norm and not a dim and distant hope.
You can contact me at nkhogan@sophiatransformations.com
References and Resources:
Chowdhury, Mudhuleena Roy Happiness at Work: 10 Tips for How to be Happy at Work https://positivepsychology.com/happiness-at-work/
Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), Critical Components for Ensuring a Joyful, Engaged Workforce Critical Components for Ensuring a Joyful, Engaged Workforce | IHI
Grant, Adam In addition to the New York Times article from April, Grant has recently done a Daily TED talk podcast on languishing and how torestore flow https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkczIuZmVlZGJ1cm5lci5jb20vdGVkdGFsa3NfYXVkaW8/episode/ZW4uYXVkaW8udGFsay50ZWQuY29tOjgwNjg2?hl=en-GB&ved=2ahUKEwimupfr2fTyAhWLT8AKHZo4DxsQjrkEegQIDhAL&ep=6
Greater Good at Berkely as a great resource for articles and ideas for creating joy at work. Here’s a link to their article, “The four keys to happiness at work.”
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_four_keys_to_happiness_at_work
Lieu, Jeff “Making Joy a Priority at Work,” Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2019/07/making-joy-a-priority-at-work
Pfeffer, Jeffrey 2018 Dying for a Paycheck, Harpers Business
Stewart, Henry, The Happy Manifesto. You can download the Happy Manifesto for free at www.happy.co.uk. It lists 10 components needed for a happy workforce. Also, here’s the link to the guide below for 82 practical steps you can take in these 10 areas to create joy at work https://www.happy.co.uk/media/1471/80-ideas-2018.pdf
Website that lists actions you can take to make your workplace more joyful https://www.actionforhappiness.org
