Being Happy Starts by Saying It!

Employees, who wrote weekly about what had made them happy at work and why, significantly increased their happiness and productivity.

Challenge

Low morale and reduced level of happiness are a common challenge in most companies and impact employee efficiency, overall productivity and hence revenues. Measuring this through the culture and employment pulse survey, paired with data analytics for productivity, reveals the extent of the challenge. 

Insights

For 6 weeks, we partnered with a global software engineering firm and asked employees to spend 10 minutes at the end of each week writing about three things that had gone well at work and their associated feelings over the past seven days. As compared to control participants who only outlined work tasks, participants in the treatment condition reported greater happiness and were more efficient, especially if they put more effort into the treatment task. 

Impact

Whilst only self-reports of increased happiness have so far been measured, the BI2 has demonstrated that using simple self-administered activities, such as practicing gratitude or kindness, increases happiness of employees.