I was recently invited to talk with employee engagement expert David Zinger about happiness at work and how it relates to engagement.

We had a great talk and you can hear the whole thing here:

There’s also a transcript if you’d prefer to read it.

Wikipedia delivers again, this time with a great overview of working time – from the stone age to today.

A few nuggets from the article:

…early hunter-gatherer societies enjoyed more leisure time than is permitted by capitalist and agrarian societies;^[5][6] For instance, one camp of !Kung Bushmen was estimated to work two-and-a-half days per week, at around 6 hours a day.^[7] Aggregated comparisons show that on average the working day was less than five hours.^[5]
…
The automobile manufacturer, Henry Ford, was an ardent proponent of shorter work hours, which he introduced unilaterally in his own factories.
…
Recent studies[9][10] supporting a four-day week have shown that reduced work hours not only increase consumption and invigorate the economy
…
Because of the pressure of working, time is increasingly viewed as a commodity.[26] This trend, as well as the amount of working time being found to affect gender roles, has been notably researched by Sociology professor Dr. Stephen C. Smith.[27] In 2006, the average man employed full-time worked 8.4 hours per work day, and the average woman employed full-time worked 7.7 hours per work day.[28]

Good stuff. There’s loads more – go read the whole thing.

Related posts

• Bring back the 40-hour work week.
• Don’t let The Cult of Overwork ruin your work life.
• The top 5 new rules of productivity.
• How to procrastinate effectively.

Often you Google one thing and end up with something else and that’s how i discovered that Ed Diener (one of the world’s leading researchers in positive psychology) has an FAQ on Subjective Well-Being and that it is awesome!

It’s quite comprehensive (which is great) but it’s also nuanced and doesn’t try to give easy answers when there aren’t any.

Here’s an example:

Q: What is your advice to those who want to be happy?
A: As I have said repeatedly, I have no simple, easy answer that will make everyone happy. Some people with serious problems need to see a therapist and get professional help. And many of us have such deep-grained habits that it won’t be easy to change overnight. Plus, we all have our temperaments that will put some limits on how easy it for us to be happy.

So there is no magic elixir. Having said this, I think there are some steps people can take to insure that they are as happy as they can be (although nothing will make us happy every moment, fortunately).

First, we need good friends and family, and we may need to sacrifice to some extent to insure that we have intimate, loving relationships – people who care about us, and about whom we care deeply.

Second, we need to involve ourselves in activities – work, for example – that we enjoy and value. We are likely to be best at things we value and think are interesting.

Finally, we need to control how we look at the world. We need to train ourselves not to make a big deal of trivial little hassles, to learn to focus on the process of working toward our goals (not waiting to be happy until we achieve them), and to think about our blessings (making a habit of noticing the good things in our lives).

Or this one:

Q: Are there scientific theories of SWB?
A: There are lots of theories, but no powerful theory has emerged that can explain most of the data. There are theories about social comparison, about adaptation, and many other aspects of SWB, but each one of them seems to predict only some of the differences in happiness, and each of the theories thus far has been incompatible with at least some of the data. So the field is still in a theory-building stage.

Beware of researchers who think that they have a broad theory that can explain everything about SWB. Many theories (e.g., the idea that people are less happy if they are around others who have more than they do) have proven oversimplified, or correct only in limited circumstances.

There’s loads more. Go read the whole thing.

According to research, we become a happier when good things happen to us (duh!) but the effect is even bigger when good things happen to us unexpectedly:

Emory University and Baylor College of Medicine researchers used Magnetic Resonance Imaging brain scans to measure changes in human brain activity in response to a sequence of pleasurable stimuli.

They used a computer-controlled device to squirt fruit juice or water into the mouths of 25 research participants. The patterns of the squirting were either predictable or unpredictable.

The researchers found that the MRI scans showed a brain area called the nucleus accumbens to be much more active when the subjects received unpredictable patterns of juice and water.

So:

• Something nice happens that you expect = good
• Something nice happens unexpectedly = even better

This is interesting in the context of happiness at work because many of the things companies do to make their employees happier are utterly predictable: Summer parties, Christmas parties, Bonuses, team events, and so on happen on an almost completely fixed schedule, which serves to diminish their effectiveness.

This is why we advocate also doing random acts of workplace kindness. According to this research, a small well-meant surprising gesture towards an employee or a team may make them much happier.

So what could you do, to surprise a co-worker today? Here are some examples from previous blog posts:

• A really nice, surprising reward for a star performer.
• Give you co-workers a morning surprise.
• Random acts of kindness at work.

Your take

Has anyone ever done something that surprised and delighted you at work? Or have you done something like that to you co-workers?

WorldBlu, an American company dedicated to promoting democracy in the workplace, have just released their 2012 list of the world’s most democratic workplaces – and we’re on it again.

On this year’s list you’ll see companies like Davita, HCL and many other great companies who have based their organizations on freedom and democracy instead of command and control.

If you scroll through the list, you will find our company sandwiched between WD-40 and Zappos.com. That’s what I call a place of honor :o) You can see the entire list here.

This marks only the second year that you’ll find any Danish companies on the list, and you’ll find no less than three! Apart from us, there’s also our good friends at Podio, makers of the coolest collaboration software I know and Valtech, a large IT consulting company.

The reason why we run our company democratically is simple: Democracy makes people happy and happy people do a better job. Because we run democratically, we are much better at fulfilling our vision of making many more people happy at work around the world.

I’ll talk more about this at WorldBlu Live in Denver in May 2013, where I’ll be speaking along with many fascinating and cool people. I have been to every single one of WorldBlu’s conferences and they are the very best business conferences I’ve been to. They even beat the TED conference for the sheer energy, inspiration and cool people you meet. You should sign up for the WorldBlu Live conference right now or you will miss out on something amazing.

Your take

How about you? Is your workplace democratic? Are you involved in making decisions that impact you? Would you like it to be?

I got an email from Kim, who finally decided to quit her job:

I was pushed to the limit at work today with the final act occurring when I was berated by my boss in front of the whole office.

I’ve disliked my job for a while but was using most of your excuses; i.e. I’m not a quitter, things might get better, health care, it may look bad, etc. I actually googled “resignation letter” and was prompted to your page.

I will be submitting my resignation letter tomorrow but felt I was letting down myself, family, the people who work for me, etc. After going through your website I do feel better about proceeding.

I have worked for great companies and great bosses so I know what it SHOULD be like and this is not it. Thank you for reinforcing what I already knew which is that I deserve better.

I asked for a follow-up and got this back:

Thank you Alexander, I did resign today and I feel so relieved.

It couldn’t have gone better and I was asked how they can improve the culture based on my leaving as they recognize there is an issue.

Firs of all: Kudos to Kim for finding the courage to do the necessary and leave that job.

Secondly: I often think that one of the main causes of unhappiness at work is our unwillingness to quit. People stay way too long in unhappy workplaces, under jerk bosses or in bad jobs. And this serves to perpetuate a bad situation.

I’m not saying that quitting a job is easy, in fact it may be one of the hardest decisions a person can make. But I do think that if people quit bad jobs more readily, they’d be happier at work.

So if you’re thinking of quitting, these articles might help:

• Top 10 bad excuses for staying in a crappy job.
• How to know it’s time to quit.
• Top 10 signs you’re not happy at work.
• Best resignation letter ever.

Update: I just got another email from Kim, who writes:

Thank you for sharing my story. I wanted to follow up with you and let you know that I quickly found a new job wtih a better company, what appears to be a better culture (Start Monday) and with a 17% increase in pay over the bad job I was holding on to.

Even better :o)