Ang Peregrino Recommends 50: The Chief Happiness Officer

The Chief Hap­pi­ness Offi­cer
URL: http://​pos​i​tive​shar​ing​.com/

Happi­ness at work is a strange idea to many peo­ple, who have got­ten used to the idea that work is unpleas­ant, tough and hard. Work can be ener­giz­ing, mean­ing­ful, inspir­ing and plain old fun. When it is, we enjoy work more, we enjoy life more and we get more done on the job. I have talked about this sev­eral times in the past. You can check out I will talk about this topic in a post this com­ing Thurs­day called, “The For­mula to a Happy Life.”

Hap­pi­ness at work is the main theme of the Chief Hap­pi­ness Offi­cer, Alexan­der Kjerulf. He believes that work­places can be more fun, more life­giv­ing, more enjoy­able; and that work does not have to be dreary and depress­ing. Here is one of his arti­cles about an (imag­i­nary) boss giv­ing this note to one of his new employ­ees. We do hope this imag­i­nary boss becomes a real­ity more and more in our workplaces:

Imag­ine it’s your first day in a new job. You sit down at your desk for the first time, and wait­ing for you there is a note from your new boss.

In the note your boss bids you a warm wel­come to the com­pany, and then says this:

1: My most impor­tant pri­or­ity is your hap­pi­ness and pro­duc­tiv­ity at work. If there’s any­thing I can do to make you hap­pier and more effi­cient — tell me right away. This isn’t ide­al­ism, it’s good busi­ness, because happy peo­ple are more productive.

2: I will not bur­den you with end­less rules and reg­u­la­tions. You’re an adult — I trust you to use your best judgment.

3: You have my full per­mis­sion to screw up, as long as you own up to it, apol­o­gize to those affected and learn from it.

4: Please tell me when I screw up so I can apol­o­gize and learn from it.

5: Please make sure to hunt down peo­ple who do great work and praise them for it. I will do this as much as humanly pos­si­ble, but I can’t do it alone.

6: If I get it right occa­sion­ally, I’d love to hear about it from you, too :o)

7: I will always have time for you. My cal­en­dar will never be so full that my next free time to talk to you is three weeks from next Friday.

8: I want to know about you as an employee AND as a human being. I DO care about your pri­vate life, about your and your family’s health and well-being.

9: Life is more than work. If you’re reg­u­larly work­ing over­time, you’re just mak­ing your­self less happy and more stressed. Don’t join the cult of over­work — it’s bad for you and the company.

10: I expect you to take respon­si­bil­ity for your own well-being at work. If you can do some­thing today to make your­self, a co-worker or me a lit­tle hap­pier at work — do it!

There’s a lot of great stuff here. You can check also check out the fol­low­ing articles:

Happy Hour is 9–5
Happy at Work in Six Min­utes
Why The Cus­tomer is Always Right is Wrong
10 Seri­ously Cool Work Places

Or maybe you can check out his arti­cles listed as BEST OF SITE.

For remind­ing us that work is sup­posed to make life more enrich­ing, and that a happy work life makes life in gen­eral a happy one as well, AngPere­grino Rec­om­mends The Chief Hap­pi­ness Offi­cer this week.