Mark Price - Six Steps to Workplace Happiness

1. Measurement:
   measuringworkplacehappiness.com

There are the six steps that drive the happiness of employees:

Step One: Reward and recognition
Pay is important in any job, but linking it to recognition is a powerful motivator.

Step Two: Information sharing
An open, transparent culture ensures widespread understanding of objectives.

Step Three: Empowerment
Once employees know what needs to be done, if you empower them theyll make intelligent suggestions and be more committed to the best way forward.

Step Four: Well-being
A happy, healthy workforce is better equipped to do business.

Step Five: Instilling pride
Pride in the workplace and its status in society adds to fulfilment.

Step Six: Job satisfaction
A culture of trust and respect engages on a personal level and encourages a stronger bond.

These elements control our sense of happiness in what we do each working day and, in turn, ensure we give the best we have to get the job done. If you visit measuringworkplacehappiness.com you or your organisation can get both quantitative and qualitative measurements of happiness.

For more than three decades I worked for The John Lewis Partnership whose supreme purpose was the happiness of its employees, or Partners as they are called, not maximising shareholder returns or being customer-centric, but putting employee well-being first.

Over the last ten years, as a business leader and government minister, I have heard increasing calls for a more inclusive capitalism and a fairer form of capitalism as a response to the financial crisis of 2008 and the perceived and real excesses of capitalism. There is a widely held belief that there is too large a gap between the haves and the have-nots, that jobs are being lost to technology and cheaper labour, and that as a result people are working harder to stand still, and that big business is acting unfairly, and that institutions and governments are failing the people.

To my mind, inclusive capitalism means engaging employees more in their organisations success, and in so doing, more fairly balancing rewards and responsibility, not just for the employees benefit, but also for that of customers and local communities as well as shareholders and business leaders. This is sustainable capitalism.

I believe there is a moral as well as an economic imperative for employees to be more engaged in their organisations any organisation. The straightforward message is that if you focus first and foremost on your employees well-being and happiness, your organisation will do better and society will be better off too. That is because workplace happiness is derived from a sense of ownership and control and feeling positive about the environment in which you work. It drives increased productivity and commitment, which drives increased customer satisfaction, which drives increased profitability from which shareholders and society benefits.

The lessons I draw from my experience are summarised here, but are set out in more detail in my book Fairness For All. In it, through numerous examples, I have tried to show that elements of the JLP model can translate very successfully elsewhere however your business or organisation is constructed. If employee happiness is the objective, it is possible to create a sense of ownership and responsibility around a business in a range of ways. Individuals who feel they have more power over their working life, well-being and environment will take more responsibility for the success of their employer. The endgame should be a more engaged society that promotes greater happiness, collective endeavour and a fairer sharing of success.