John Helliwell has spent four decades charting the mechanics of economic growth and international trade. He is one of Canada's most eminent economists. But on a Friday evening earlier this year, the University of British Columbia professor emeritus appeared to be on the verge of making a fool of himself. Helliwell was raising his arms before an assembly of about 100 members of the Vancouver Board of Trade, and inviting them to sing a children's song with him.
"The more we get together, together, together," he belted out, waving his hands like Raffi. "Come on now!"
A split second of excruciating silence ensued. Papers shuffled in some unseen corner. Someone coughed. Yet when Helliwell launched into the second verse, he was not alone. A hundred voices bellowed with him:
"The more we get together—the happier we'll be!"
It turns out that members of the Board of Trade are among a growing chorus of businesspeople enthusiastically singing Helliwell's happy refrain. In fact, the board has even appointed a CHO—Chief Happiness Officer. All this is remarkable not because of the moments of campfire-song conviviality being generated in lecture halls and boardrooms across the continent, but because it's part of a movement, led by people like Helliwell, that seeks to change the way we run companies, countries and perhaps even the global economy. The movement's goal is simple: to maximize human happiness.
This was once the territory of psychologists and New Age self-help gurus. Not any more. In recent years, economists have mined surveys and socioeconomic data to produce reports that suggest much of what they believed about human happiness is wrong. Early interest in the subject emerged following the publication of a 1974 paper by University of Southern California economist Richard Easterlin, who found that general feelings of well-being were flatlining even as America's GDP went through the roof. Further research shows our mothers were right: It takes more than money to find inner bliss.
The happiness crowd is gaining influence. In the United Kingdom, economist and parliamentarian Lord Richard Layard used happiness studies (which showed that the unemployed really don't enjoy being jobless) to fuel the government's reforms of the unemployment benefit system. In Bogotá, Colombia, former mayor Enrique Peñalosa drew on happiness theory to justify massive investment in parks and an all-out war on cars. In November, scholars from Bhutan will entreat delegates to the Gross National Happiness Conference to follow their mountain kingdom's lead and replace GDP with GNH as the measure of success. Canada is not immune: In September, Harvard economist Rafael Di Tella was invited to lecture the Bank of Canada on how monetary policy might boost happiness.
It's hard to argue that blissfulness is not a desirable condition. But Helliwell is proving that it is also good for business. That's because work satisfaction is a key component of general life happiness. This should be no great surprise—we spend as much as half our waking hours on the job. What's surprising is just how much a day at work can be worth to the average employee.
Using Canadian survey data and some mind-numbing arithmetic, Helliwell and UBC colleague Haifang Huang were able to put a cash value on the effect of job satisfaction on general happiness. That number varies along a bell curve. But take, for example, a single employee who rates her job satisfaction a nine out of 10, and who makes $65,000 a year. Imagine some work-culture corrosion triggers a one-point drop in her job satisfaction. It would take an extra $30,000 a year to compensate for the negative effect this would have on her general happiness.
Helliwell's research offers clues on how to keep the happy boat afloat. It shows that the greatest determinant of workplace happiness is not pay, workload or perks, but a feeling: trust.
