Creating an happy workplace is one of the main focuses of the companies nowadays, even though there are still some objections against it. Alexander Kjerulf, founder of Wohoo Inc., and Happiness expert, has published in his LinkedIn profile an interesting video, collecting the 20 most common ones he usually deals with in his job. 

Talking about happiness at work the first objection is about his definition: what is happiness at work? Being danish, as Alexander Kjerulf, in the case, might help. The Scandinavian languages have a word for it, and it is Arbejdsglæde, and Kjerulf has made all his job about it. He is firmly convinced that happiness is just about doing something you are good at, that makes a positive difference in the world, together with great coworkers and teams. Or in other words, quoting a definition by Sonja Lyubomirsky, it is “the experience of joy, contentment or positive well-being at work, combined with a sense that one’s work life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile”.

Talking about happiness someone may say that you can’t objectively measure it or that it is impossible to make everyone happy, also because most of the time people don’t know what makes them happy as well. However a lot of research have been made and a productive dialogue with workers can be a good solution. Also it is the goal of a leadership to educate team members in understanding what could really make them happy at work. And if the answer are different, it is useful to remember that “the only way to treat everybody the same is to that everybody differently”.
Moreover happiness can’t be considered a private matter: a lot of people wants to have the right to feel sad at work, considering the all parties, fun and games in the office trivial, frivolous, stupid or ridiculous. The true is that a negative or sad attitudine can affect all the team and the productivity of a company as different studies show.

Happiness won’t make you selfish, complacent and lazy, but gives you the energy to be a good corporate citizen, to create a great team and to give a better customer service. It must be underlined as well that make people happy at work it is not just about fun, but also about showing them that they are doing a good job, showing that they work is meaningful, and giving them competences, training, skills to do a good job.It is also nonsense to try to keep the emotions out of the office. Emotions belong to the workplace as to the other spheres of an human life since they are the core of human beings and of the process of decision making.

That is why being happy at work it is not impossible. Even though someone affirms that if you expect to be happy at work, you will be disappointed, the opposite it is actually true: if you expect to be happy, you will do something about it in your office and you’ll try to create or to find a workplace where you are happy.
As Kjerulf concludes: “Make your happiness your n°1 carrier goal or, if you are a leader, make happiness the number 1 goal of your leadership”.
Text by Gabriele Masi.