Productivity: Happiness and the Work / Life balance fallacy

During the last few decades, the workforce landscape has changed drastically. The repetitive, “factoryesque” jobs that proliferated and dominated after the industrial revolution are becoming more and more automated, as well as being replaced by robots with the help of AI. Even some office workers are being replaced by intelligent software. At the same time more and more openings for creative functions (software developers, marketeers, sales, designers, engineers, etc) are appearing everywhere.

These two types of functions require very different approaches in order to achieve productive results. The first one is essentially based on repetitive tasks where the biggest contributor for the output is the number of times each task is executed, which usually means that more hours of work lead to greater production. For the second case, the biggest factor for productivity is the amount of creative thinking one can do and how one can find a good solution to a complex problem.

Adding to that, the enormous demand for top-tier creative workers, combined with the lack of people with those profiles, makes it really difficult for companies that want to be successful and innovative to attract the amount of workers needed to evolve as well as keep their current employees on for longer.

That’s where happiness comes in.

A number of studies and experiences (Forbes, gethppy, glassdoor) clearly show that happy employees perform better, especially on creative, innovative functions. People that are satisfied with their lives produce more than people that are unhappy and/or worried. Happy people also tend to stick with the same company for longer.

With these conclusions becoming more and more evident, companies (especially startups) started promoting the “work/life balance” as well as giving “cool” perks like bean bags, ping pong tables or beer on tap on Fridays. They totally missed the point! When a company promotes work/life balance what they are saying to the World is that work and personal life are two different compartments of their employees’ lives.

Are your personal and work life really separate?

I’m sure everyone, at some point, has had a crappy day at work. When this happens, do you go home and suddenly become happier? Can you stop thinking about what happened at work and change your mood just because you were off “work hours”? What about when you have a personal issue, can you go to work and completely forget about it? Doesn’t it affect your mind during the work day?

Your work influences your personal time and vice versa. If you’re happy with your job you will be happier when you’re off work, and when you’re happy at home you’ll come in to work with way more energy. Big companies like IKEA, Netflix, Pinterest, Spotify or HotJar have a great focus on their employees happiness. Google even has a Chief Happiness Officer, and clearly they are doing something right!

How to help productiveness rise

If companies want productive employees, that give their best everyday and want them to stick around for longer, then the focus should be on doing everything they can to ensure their employees are happy.

The tricky part is figuring out what makes each person happy. Individuals will have different “requirements” but there are a few that seem to be common to everyone.

Employees want to feel that their employers care about them and are allowed to adjust their work in order to be more productive. People seem to really value things like flexible work hours, flexible time off, freedom to discuss ideas, feeling that they are heard, being compensated for their good work, getting help while developing their careers and reaching their goals, protection, and support when difficult times come (health problems, financial difficulties…).

In conclusion, companies that want to be ahead of the competition and recruit, retain, and get the most out of the best people, should be focused on understanding how to help their employees lead a happier life so they can turn that happiness into better results.

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