In recent years, it seems that everywhere you turn someone’s talking about happiness. (Even me.)
There are well over 30,000 books on the subject at Amazon.com, like:
- The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun
- The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles That Fuel Success and Performance at Work
- Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose
- Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment
- Happy for No Reason: 7 Steps to Being Happy from the Inside Out
What’s really interesting to me is seeing how often happiness is linked to work and business — like The Happiness Advantage and Delivering Happiness titles above, for example. (There are over 1,200 happiness books in the Business section on Amazon.com, by the way.)
Is this really something leaders should be concerned with, or is it just some touchy-feely, feel-good fad?
Check out the infographic from Gravitate below and see for yourself. Here are some highlights:
- 43% of employees are stressed out by a heavy workload
- Over half of the 550 million lost working days in the U.S. are stress related
- 83% of employers are NOT able to accurately guess the amount of stress and anxiety in the workplace (that’s scary!)
- Happy employees are 85% more efficient with their time
- Happy employees stay TWICE as long in their job
Is there really a ‘happiness advantage’?