The Business Case for Happiness

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Lindsey: I think this paper makes it very clear there is a business case for happiness. Whatever companies do to make their workers have higher levels of wellbeing, so feel better at the company, it seems to pay off. We know that if you are a great place to work and people feel good, although your talent stays longer - on average you'll stay 70 years rather than four. Being a good place to work for also makes you a more attractive employer.

In this episode of the ESG Insider podcast, we’re exploring the business case for happiness — specifically, how companies can measure and manage employee wellbeing.

We speak to Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Professor of Behavioural Science and Economics at Saïd Business School and a Fellow of Harris Manchester College at the University of Oxford. He is also Director of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre, and co-editor of the World Happiness Report. And he’s a co-founder of the World Wellbeing Movement, a coalition of stakeholders from business, civil society and academia aiming to put wellbeing at the heart of decision-making.

Jan talks to us about his research, including a new study making headlines that explores workplace wellbeing and firm performance. He explains that measuring worker wellbeing can be challenging because it involves the way people feel, and senior leaders are often hesitant to take action on subjective indicators.

"What's so nice about the studies we've done is that we showed these subjective indicators — how people feel at work — that there's real objective consequences or objective correlations to very highly objective data, including the financial performance of companies,” Jan tells us.

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