Irish Examiner:  The joy of work

Workplaces look to make the labour experience a more enjoyable and balanced place, as companies struggle to fill vacancies.

Some companies use a traffic light system to measure how colleagues are feeling at the start and end of each day and week. Picture: iStock

Does your company have a chief happiness officer? And if not, why not? And does that make you unhappy?

This corporate wheeze has begun to gain traction as bosses and HR managers face up to the fact that it is increasingly hard to hold on to staff and, that once a job falls vacant, it is more and more expensive to fill, it being a sellers’ market during what has become known as The Great Resignation.

Much better, then, to make sure that the team remains in good spirits by focusing on those rubrics and magic words that can raise all boats when properly deployed. Empowerment, growth, positivity, value, freedom, balance. Some companies use a traffic light system to measure how colleagues are feeling at the start and end of each day and week, and what issues have been aggravating them. Some like to deploy inspirational quotes and bits of music to jolly people along.

There’s a strong risk that this kind of thing can flip over into psychobabble and the US, which wrote the source code for that, is also keen on the influence of happiness in improving competitive performance.

The trend is on the increase; there are university courses in it and a leading law firm in London is on the verge of making its first appointment, hoping to make its business “the most vibrant, happy and uplifting place to work in the world”. Be warned, then, it might be coming to an office near you soon. They will be reviving the concept of company songs at the start of the shift next.