It’s very heartening to see how many blogs out there have a deep focus on making work a nice experience, instead of something we just do to make a living. Here are some great recent blogposts about happiness at work.

Hidden Mojo on 7 Ways to Make Your Company More Human, Part One. Includes:

• Incentivize Groups, Not Individuals
• Encourage Employees to Blog
• Maximize Work-Life Integration

I like it already, and it’s only part one.

The Hog-blog on letting your career of the leash for a spell.

Since May, I’ve been letting my career rove to and fro. Consciously, I chose to make no plans or goals, do no outreach or inquiry, and instead, simply respond to the clients and opportunities that presented themselves.

This experiment led me to people and places and possibilities that I’d normally never encounter. I became a brand manager for a celebrity, outlined a new book concept, developed two reality TV shows, and created a new kind of speaking program that’s marketing + entertainment. And that was just October.

I’ve done this several times, and I highly recommend it. In fact, that’s how I came to work with happiness at work in the first place.

Slow Leadership on How to Avoid Burnout

If you look at the six major causes of burnout carefully, it’s clear that all of them are choices, either by management or staff or both. That means you can choose not to suffer burnout. The key is putting your personal values before purely material rewards.

Great stuff. Slow Leadership is one of the most consistently interesting, well-written and provocative work-blogs out there.

All Things Workplace on 3 Sure-Fire Steps to Developing Talent

Something counter-productive is happening on the way to developing your workforce.

It’s called Talent Management.

Right. I have sinned. I should know that Talent Management is “what’s happening.”

No it isn’t.

It has become a bloated, navel-gazing, bureaucratic, software-selling non-panacea that substitutes for the real thing.

You tell’em, Steve!

Valuing Happiness at Think Happy Thoughts:

On a scale of 1 to 5 what is your level of commitment to happiness? What actions have you recently taken that demonstrate your commitment to happiness? What would happen if you gave 5% more attention to your goal of achieving happiness?

Exactly – we have to value happiness and give it it’s proper place among our priorities: First.

I got an email from Christian Thompson who wrote:

I’m a big fan of the site, and have given my principal a copy of the draft of “Happy Hour is 9 to 5”. He really seems to be liking it and has actually put a sign up outside of his office that says “Arbejdsglæde” in big letters, and then he has a tiny paper next to it that has a link to your site.

Thanks!

Anyhoo, here is a link to a fantastic article on the ROWE system at Best Buy. It’s quite detailed and shows the pros of flexibility and the possible difficulties in implementing it.

First: Thanks! It’s great to see the concept of arbejdsglæde spreading :o)

Second: I agree on the Best Buy point – that is a great article and a great system that Best Buy are putting in place. From the article:

The endeavor, called ROWE, for “results-only work environment,” seeks to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity. The goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours.

I’ve always felt that companies that treat their employees like responsible adults, capable of making decisions for themselves are much more likely to make their people happy at work.

After all – who is in a better position to manage your work conditions than you?