The link between positive feeling & positive functioning at work

The link between positive feeling & positive functioning at work

As the seven dwarfs clearly understood in the Disney film ‘Snow White’ when they sang “Whistle while you work” that a happy worker is a more productive worker. -but is that actually true? Well, the recent surge of research on the subject of well-being at work over the last few years certainly indicate there is something in it -and we are now developing a better understanding of the link between positive emotions & enhanced performance at work.

In the past positive emotions have been seen as purely an effect of positive functioning. (“Things are going well, so I feel good”) however, in recent years we are now realising that positive emotions are a cause of positive functioning. (“I feel positive so I perform better”). The opposite would therefore also be true –I feel negative, so I produce poorer performance. Which of those two emotions have the greatest impact?

The Charted Institute of Personnel & Development conducted a survey of over 2000 employees that compared a range of emotions that people reported alongside several key performance indicators of job satisfaction, meaningfulness of work, engagement with the tasks at work, loyalty, performance & commitment. Interestingly, with the exception of job satisfaction, the results showed that positive emotions appear to have twice the impact on these key performance indicators than negative emotions.

What this means is that it is clearly important for organisations to create a climate at work that promotes positive emotions. There are a number of ways this can be done, though the idea that first comes to mind for most people, that of pay increases, has a limited effect in terms of sustainable impact. In truth increased pay has consistently been shown NOT to significantly increase levels of positivity at work past an initial reaction that soon subsides. Interestingly, according to the psychologist Oliver James an expert in this area, it would appear that once you reach a certain level of annual salary around the £15,000 to £20,000 mark, increasing affluence has no impact on whether you are likely to be happier in both work & life in general. In fact, Oliver James has found that the more you earn, the less likely you are to be happy.

So ruling out pay increases, which in these times of recession are fewer and far between anyway, what can managers do to raise levels of positivity at work?

Here are Arcadia Alive’s 5 top tips.

• Find out from your staff a) are they happy at work? (& if not, why not?) & b) what would make them happy. This can either be done through large-scale staff surveys, or a team leader facilitating a discussion on it in a meeting, or simply a manager & member of staff sitting down together and having a chat about it.

• Make sure there is an opportunity for managers to provide positive feedback to staff. Even if it’s just a quick “Keep up the good work” comment, that is better than nothing. In many organisations the only feedback staff get is negative feedback. This culture is often associated with poor morale & a lack of positive feeling among staff.

• Ensure that staff motivators are not all stick & no carrot. In fact the more positive rewards over negative punishments there are, the better response you will get. This does not mean going “soft” on discipline & turning a blind eye to poor performance –that will only undermine the morale of those staff who are achieving, but organisations need to ensure there are rewards in place for excellent performance.

• Managers need to blend the right levels of support with challenges. Not enough support & staff become overwhelmed with the demands of their job & will feel isolated & disconnected from the organisation & it’s goals (this can even lead to resentment towards the organisation). Not enough challenges & staff can get bored, disillusioned & distracted from work that isn’t engaging.

• Staff need to feel valued not just through words, but actions also. Clear investment in staff through provision of the right tools for the job, an acceptable working environment & appropriate & stimulating training are all valued by those who receive it –and for those who don’t it can become another gripe that negatively affects attitudes in the workplace.

Arcadia Alive run a number of training courses that increase positivity at work including:
• ‘Motivation at work.’ A course for managers which looks at how to engage staff at work, reduce workplace stress & engage staff more effectively.
• ‘Stress Management’ for individuals to better management the demands placed upon them at challenging times.
• ‘The Driver Support Programme’ a programme specifically designed for train drivers, which encompasses a wide range of well-being & performance enhancing areas including conflict management, managing stress & lifestyle issues.
• Developing Leadership skills –a course that includes the wide range of core skills modern managers & leaders require –including those that foster more positive attitudes & culture at work.

Additional Arcadia Alive courses related to this area include: Communication & Conflict Management, Performance Management, Time Management, Coaching Skills, Emotional Intelligence, Change Management, Executive Coaching & Developing Managerial Skills. For further details on any of these courses, if you want to discuss a course tailored to your specific needs, please contact our team.

Further reading.
A Book: The Science of Well-being by F.A. Huppert et al. Oxford University Press.
A Report: Working Life: Employee Attitudes & Engagement. CIPD, 2006. (Available on the CIPD website: www.cipd.co.uk)
An Article:The Role of positivity & connectivity in the performance of business teams. M. Lasado & E. Heaphy in the ‘American Behavioural Scientist’ Vo.47 #6. Feb 2004.