Happiness is good for business

Recent years have really changed the way people feel about work. New technology and remote working have redefined work-life boundaries and there is now a shift to reconsider the role work plays in all our lives. Across the globe people are changing their expectations of employers and working environments and redefining their ideas about ways of working and working relationships.

At Havas Lynx Group we have always realised that our ongoing success relies on our staff. Their ability to thrive, develop, and grow within the business is critical in ensuring we’re at the top of our game; and happiness plays a fundamental role. Happier staff are more productive, they solve problems faster, adapt to change, and are more creative. In short, happier staff create better work for our clients. But how do we know if our staff are happy?

Traditionally, we have measured annual staff engagement and job satisfaction metrics along with business performance – standard measures, but they don’t really help us to understand the interconnected nature of staff wellbeing. So we decided to take a more individualised approach to help us get to the heart of what really matters to our employees and then use the results to develop initiatives to not only maintain, but to actually enhance wellbeing and happiness within the company.

By partnering with the Health and Happiness Research Foundation, we are leading the way in doing just that – redefining the ways in which we measure employee satisfaction both at an individual and agency level. Using a framework that focuses on an individual’s life more broadly, rather than just work, we have co-developed a new anonymous survey tool that provides a richer picture of employee wellbeing. The results have enabled us to capture actionable trend data across key topics that had previously not been considered such as human purpose, physical and mental health, quality of relationships at work, trust, equality and inclusivity, and work-life balance.

Catalina Cernica, CEO of the Health & Happiness Research Foundation, explains: “Our methodology explores the role of work, and its different aspects, in creating and maintaining a good life. Firmly anchored in scientific research into the intricate connections between happiness and work, we are able to identify the key drivers of job satisfaction and life satisfaction – giving us a unique happiness fingerprint for Havas Lynx Group. The outputs of the survey have allowed the agency to prioritise and co-create solutions based on what really helps their people thrive and do their best work”.

This new approach to understanding wellbeing at work has elevated our commitment to the happiness of our employees and the resulting benefits this brings to our customers and business partners. It has allowed us to design and prioritise concrete initiatives to improve wellbeing, from promoting diversity and inclusion of all voices in the company, to designing work practices to help our teams socialise and connect more. By providing us with a unique understanding of the role of work in people’s lives it has informed internal policies, enhanced talent development and retention, and fully reinforced our ethos of delivering ‘impact that matters’. And this is just the beginning.