Having Happy Employees Matters

Happiness in the Workplace

It is widely accepted that happy workers are good for business with benefits like increased productivity that can in turn lead to higher profits, but what makes for a happy workforce?

It is not just about being in the job you love that can create happiness in the workplace there are multiple factors involved; the working environment and attitudes of others affect how you feel about going into the work every day. If the environment is toxic and there is a lack of communication and support this can affect staff morale. Even the best of job roles can soon become stressful leading to strained relationships often resulting in disputes in the form of grievances,  increased absenteeism or even a disciplinary or an employment tribunal claim if an individual feels they have been unfairly treated. 

Pay rates are a key factor for happy staff

As the cost-of-living bites, rates of pay and benefits offered by an employer are important in attracting and retaining staff. 

What should an employer be considering:

• Fair & Living Wage:  paying wages that cover living costs (like the Living Wage) and paying enough for employees to live comfortably and not just to survive, significantly boosts motivation and reduces the likelihood of the employee looking for work elsewhere.
• Performance-based bonuses & profit-sharing: Individual, team or company performance plans and profit-sharing plans to benefit the employee if the company has success can increase engagement.
• Fair Pay & Benefits: offering competitive salaries are essential; many workers will leave a company for better pay elsewhere.

While a decent salary boosts motivation, fair compensation that meets needs and provides security is crucial for job satisfaction, retention, and reducing staff turnover.

However, employees also require feeling valued beyond money through recognition, good culture, and work-life balance.

Global Workforce Report of 2025

Johnny Wilson head of data at Work and his team have recently released the Global Workforce Report of 2025. They measured 120,000 different organisations across all industries globally to understand what’s really driving workplace happiness and how things are shifting around the world. They asked 22 core questions within 6 key areas and the best companies they discovered were the ones who were focusing on all 6 of the key areas.

The 6 key areas are:

• Reward and recognition
• Job satisfaction
• Empowerment
• Wellbeing
• Information sharing
• Instilling pride

External Factors

There are always of course external factors that influence and shape the world of work such as economic instability, especially rising inequality, insecurity, and downturns which fuel political divides with increasing hostility between opposing political groups which can split societies as seen in the Brexit divide in the UK.  This also affects how people feel about their jobs, their sense of security and their place in the world.

Key findings of the Report

• Technology leads in engagement – this was the most engaged Global industry in 2025 and the score was 81% – retail however was the least engaged at 71%.
• There has been an increase in male employees demanding workplace flexibility which has emerged as their strongest priority.
• That Hybrid workers are the most engaged globally.
• Globally, one in four employees feel they are not being developed in their roles.
• Young workers increasingly treat work as income, not identity, favouring flexible, value-aligned roles over progressing from one stage to another.

What about the UK?

Although the UK has shown improvement in the past 3 years with employees reporting higher engagement.  UK employees also have stronger perceptions of fair pay and reward and recognition and although levels of anxiety and depression have also declined the score was still low and it was felt that this area required continued focus.

Despite the improvement the UK still falls below the global average of 75% mainly due to weaker results in reward and recognition and only 69% of employees believe they are fairly paid which shows concerns around fairness and what they feel is the value of their contribution to the workplace.

Conclusion

Numerous research studies have established the relationship between employee happiness, employee engagement, and employee performance and the research has shown:

• Happy employees are more engaged, productive as well as having lower rates of sick leave from work.
• Having a positive work culture encourages, employee relationships which can expand employee skills, improves mental well-being which in turn can increase employee creativity and problem-solving abilities.
• A sense of community is important.  Employees feeling that their colleagues and Managers care about them helps employees to be more resilient with facing challenges both at work and in their personal lives.
• Happy employees are less stressed. When an employee has high stress levels this can cause emotional and psychological issues and result in increased absenteeism.  Happy employees are more likely to show up at work.

Research has shown that it is possible to be happy at work which challenges long held perceptions that working hard and sacrificing personal wellbeing is the only way to gain personal success.  These days this narrative is more likely to be seen as an unhealthy and unsustainable mindset work does not have to be a grind!

Photo by Husna Miskandar on Unsplash