Happyness management: social progress or the scam of the century?
"Hapiness Managers" are becoming increasingly numerous within companies in France. There were 150 of them, at the end of 2017, advertising themselves as such on LinkedIn (source AFP) and their numbers have only grown since... So, a trendy new profession, window dressing to attract talent, or a genuine societal shift that aims to put people back at the heart of the company?
Happyness Managment... Kézako?
The Happyness Managment consists in infusing a dose of happiness into the company in order to create the conditions of well-being essential to professional performance. This function falls to the Chief Happiness Officer (CHO).
The concept comes to us - again! - from Silicon Valley, where the function saw the light of day some fifteen years ago under the impetus of Chade-Meng Tan, an American engineer and Google employee who invented the "Jolly Good Fellow" function. Renamed "happiness manager", the job made its appearance in France between 2015 and 2016. To date, there is no specific training course, although a "job description" has been published and a few private courses are appearing here and there. Employers mainly recruit internally and are above all looking for "personality", even if the best profiles most often emanate from human resources, communications or events.
When the "CHO" puts on a show
Precisely because the profession is not yet standardized, the mission is variable geometry and is completely dependent on the contours the company gives it... And the means it agrees to make available to its CHO!
So, Clara, a jovial and dynamic thirty-something who acts as "Madame Happiness" in a service company, roams the offices early in the morning to invite her colleagues to a detox (and organic, of course!) breakfast. She takes the opportunity to announce the creative workshop she'll be setting up next week, and to remind everyone of this Thursday evening's after-work event... Her objective: to improve relationships, create bonds and institute a positive corporate culture. In some cases, the CHO is tasked with missions that are more HR than event-related, such as acting as mediator around the coffee machine, or probing an employee's deepest aspirations (telecommuting, mobility, training...).
.The virtues of "Happyness Managment"
While bien-être and qualité de vie au travail are increasingly prevalent issues within French companies, this search for bonheur au travail seems to be totally in the zeitgeist... If the desired end is truly to create a professional context that is likely to prevent psycho-social risks, stress, or even burn out. In this case, the CHO function is often just one component of an ambitious and committed overall CSR (corporate social responsibility) policy. Thus, the survey carried out by Meilleures-entreprises.com which measures the rate of "happy at work" employees has seen the curve tip towards a majority of happy employees; 52% declaring themselves satisfied with their working conditions, compared with 45.4% in 2015 and 2016. The list of companies where people come to work whistling includes UBISOFT, DANONE, DECATHLON or NESTLE... To name but a few.
But there are still plenty of less committed companies out there, who are simply thinking about rhyming QWL (quality of life at work) with productivity! In this case, Happyness Managment may have more down-to-earth reasons for being: to breathe pleasure into work simply to motivate, involve employees with the sole prospect, ultimately, of increasing their efficiency.
Happiness, if I want it!
It is perhaps in the name of this doubt that has seized French employees - genuine social progress, mere folklore or a maneuver to increase productivity? - that a few dissonant voices are being heard in France on the subject. And even though the number of CHO is on the rise in France, some of them admit to being met with circumspection, even irony or sarcasm. Indeed, the perverse effects of the system were described back in 2017 by Thibaut Bardon, Head of Management Research at Audencia Business School, in his op-ed entitled: "Companies take care of your happiness... for your greatest misfortune?".
Phew! French protest culture is saved: happiness, yes, but if I want it and especially not at the behest of my Boss...
