When an organization sends out a survey on employee happiness, the results of the survey won’t help improve morale or company culture. I’m not calling out companies who are trying their best to make things better; happiness is just the wrong focus for change.

In Western culture (and more specifically the USA) happiness has been placed on a pedestal. It has been made into the earned result of a journey or difficult period. That isn’t accurate and the mythos surrounding it makes the suffering we feel as humans worse.

In business, satisfaction and productivity have been linked for decades; historically, companies that report higher levels of employee satisfaction show a correlation with higher productivity. Now, happiness has been placed firmly in the mix of sought-after remedies for diminishing returns. News articles that describe how to be happier at work can be easily found with a few clicks. There are happiness consultants. Do your employees score an average of 4/5 on a happiness questionnaire? Culture is great, productivity should be too.

Unfortunately, this misunderstanding of human emotion continues to progress the mistaken idea of happiness as a desired state of being.

In “The Happiness Trap,” Dr. Russ Harris (2008) lays out the contradiction of seeking happiness. He states, “The common meaning of [happiness] is ‘feeling good.’ We all enjoy these feelings, so it’s no surprise that we chase them. However, like all human emotions, feelings of happiness don’t last…in fact, the harder we chase after pleasurable feelings, the more likely we are to suffer from anxiety and depression” (p. 5).

Paradoxically, chasing happiness leads to more sorrow. Measuring how happy an employee is at any given moment may have nothing to do with their work, their productivity, their engagement, or even their life satisfaction. Dedicating time and resources to happiness is a waste for everyone involved.[1]

A Better Alternative

Rather than measuring something that will change moment-to-moment, start asking your employees about what they find truly, deeply meaningful. When an employee starts to talk about how they want to be and what they want to stand for, critical information is being presented.  These are their values. “Values” has a complicated context in the business world. The values that are being referenced here aren’t something that marketing develops and legal verifies; these are deeply held beliefs that provide the ultimate motivation for individual humans. When a person tells you how they wish to be and act upon the world, they are providing their framework for living a meaningful life. Progressive, dynamic organizations will understand this information and use it to build unique teams, rather than shoehorning talent into predetermined positions.

[1] This post certainly isn’t the first critique of happiness as a poor measure of work performance. I highly recommend reading Dr. Christiaan Verwijs’ article critiquing the inadequate psychometrics of happiness scales here.