Take a step back

To be happy, you don't have to seek happiness. A Gallup poll reveals that if you make it your primary goal, the opposite is likely to happen! Despite all the efforts invested, stress and a feeling of failure can instead manifest themselves if you don't achieve your goal.

It seems that 90% of employees expect to feel joy at work. However, only 37% of them actually do, according to the Siegel + Gale survey . So if happiness is important to employees and companies, why isn’t it more prevalent? Are we doing it right? I doubt it. What if the best way to be happy is to forget about happiness at work?

Love your job

“The important thing is to love your work,” our parents told us about our future career. What if, instead of looking for happiness, employees and employers adopted this approach? As we present in our training courses at BonBoss, we can do what we love and love what we do.

Do what you love

There is something wonderful that happens when we do work that we love and that is challenging but not exhausting. At a certain point, we feel completely immersed in the task as if everything disappears and is replaced by a state of ecstasy. This is what the Hungarian psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi , calls flow .

I really like this approach because it shows that we have a role to play and a responsibility in achieving our happiness.

Love what you do

It is also possible for a manager to contribute to the happiness of his employee. Mr. Csikszentmihalyi mentions it: " The manager's role is to create an environment where employees enjoy their work and thrive in doing it ." Concretely, this means that a manager can help an employee love what he does. I love the example of our trainer Jacques Coderre Lareau. When a manager gives a new task to an employee, the latter can present the objective and say: "It is important to me that you love what you do. How do you perceive the effort required to deliver the project? What could we add to make it more enjoyable for you? Essentially, I am here to give you the right tools and help you." In this spirit of collaboration, everyone actively participates in happiness at work.

Where is happiness?

This leads me to tell you that happiness is not a commercial object or a quest. So, if some employers have made happiness a marketing tool for new employees, others have understood that it cannot be sold. It is experienced and built together: employee, manager and employer combined. The company focuses first on people. They are listened to, valued and the environment allows them to love what they do and do what they love. Isn't that the most beautiful form of happiness at work?