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Chief Happiness Officer or Happiness Manager: In Search of Happiness at Work  

The concept of “Happiness at Work” was created in the early 2000s by Chade-Meng Tan, an American engineer. Initially hired by Google, he was interested in the development of people and their well-being at work…

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#Newjob #Happiness #RSE #Healthatwork  

The concept of “Happiness at Work” was created in the early 2000s by Chade-Meng Tan, an American engineer. Initially hired by Google, he was interested in the development of people and their well-being at work and later changed his job to invent the function of “Jolly Good Fellow”, which in French translates as : Super Good Fellow.  

In the 2000s, we saw the profession of “Jolly Good Fellow” develop in Silicon Valley. A little later, in 2015, it appeared in France, mainly in start-up structures. He will then be renamed “Chief Happiness Officer” (CHO) or “Happiness Manager”.

The job of “Happiness Manager” consists in considering happiness at work and the well-being of employees as a factor of collective and individual performance within companies. Today, only a few training courses are offered to train for this new job… Indeed, there are still too few schools or diplomas offering this type of course. However, the position of Happiness Manager is more and more popular in job searches. That’s why CitizenWave decided to investigate a little more about this job by answering various questions in order to know a little more about it.

But then, what does the job of CHO actually consist of? What are the profiles sought for this type of job? And finally, what are the advantages for companies to integrate a job like this?

In order to learn more about this “new” profession, we will answer these questions through various media.

1) The job of Happiness Manager ?

As you will have understood, the search for happiness at work is becoming a central CSR issue for companies, large or small. But then what are the missions of a position like this in a company?

The main mission of the CHO is to make happiness reign in his company. In order to do this, he or she must first and foremost ensure that each of the company’s employees is fulfilled in the missions they have to carry out, is at ease at their workstation and in their relations with their colleagues, as well as with the hierarchy.

In order to ensure that everyone has access to optimal and pleasant working conditions for all, the CHO plays the role of mediator and facilitator in the company. However, it is the responsibility and the desire of each employee to contribute to the well-being of their structure that is at stake!

 

Let’s see a little more precisely what its main missions are in the following graphic:

 

Missions du CHO

 

The missions of the CHO described in this information sheet do not constitute an exhaustive list of all the missions that must be carried out by the employee exercising the profession.

They may either not be carried out, depending on the needs of the organization and the action plan of the CHO employee, or may be supplemented by other priority missions in line with the expectations of the organization.

In order to continue our analysis, let’s discover together the necessary profile, and requested by companies, for candidates wishing to work as a Happiness Manager.  

 

2) The qualities expected from a CHO?

Like any trade, the CHO position requires a profile with certain defined qualities and skills.

All the more so as he or she must perform the functions of other professions depending on the situation: HR qualities and skills in relationship and conflict management, communication skills when it comes to ensuring transparency and team cohesion, or health skills when it comes to ensuring the well-being of employees in the company, etc…

However, there is no “perfect” profile for the role of Happiness Manager. As with the previous list, which sets out the main missions of the CHO, his qualities/competencies can also be different and evolve according to the needs of the organization and the profile of the latter.

We will discover some of them in the next graphic detailing the (non-exhaustive) qualities essential to the profile of the CHO in the company 😊 :

 

 

Qualités et compétences du CHO

 

 

 

You will have understood that this job requires qualities and skills both on the relational and communicational level and on the organizational level.

But in concrete terms, now that we know a little more about the CHO’s missions and profile, what are the advantages for organizations to set up a job like this?

 

 

3) The benefits of a CHO for an organization:

The issues of staff turnover and absenteeism rates in companies obviously arise, and having someone in charge of building a work environment conducive to professional fulfillment is essential to reduce the figures related to these issues.

Indeed, according to a new study conducted by the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick in the UK, productivity would increase by 37% when employees are happy in their company.

As the book “The Happiness Advantage” by Shawn Anchor, an American author, speaker known for his advocacy of positive psychology and founder of Good Think, states, “happiness in the workplace {…} also leads to a myriad of improvements in employee health and quality of life.

These in-depth studies show the benefits of implementing this new profession in companies from a quantifiable point of view.

However, topics such as employer branding and recruitment referencing are also taken into account. From now on, salary no longer plays a predominant role in the motivation of future employees, where the working atmosphere and the values disseminated by the company become important criteria for successful hiring.

This is why, in order to stand out from the competition and attract new talent at the same time, the creation of a Happiness Manager position is a real advantage for companies wishing to meet these needs.

 

CitizenWave brings an internal digital solution to facilitate the implementation of a position like this one.

With the help of its collaborative platform dedicated to CSR and sustainable development, employee involvement and well-being at work, and the improvement of the professional environment in a global way, the CHO will be able to easily set up its internal actions in accordance with the company’s objectives and the expressed needs of the employees.

Indeed, the CitizenWave application allows a CHO to boost its internal actions by directly involving employees, all of which is centralized in the platform :

Internal actions and information;
Employee feedback on specific subjects;
The impact of each of the projects and the relevance of the topics addressed thanks to the “Analytics” part of the platform;
Internal animations focused on the well-being and cohesion of the different departments;
etc…

To learn more about the different possibilities of using the platform in companies, contact us at the following address:

It will be a pleasure for our teams to deepen on the subject with you and to bring a real solution facilitating the implementation of Happiness at Work.

 

Sources :  

Studied in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick, UK: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/dsgroi/impact/hp_briefing.pdf 

Site Manager-Go: https://www.manager-go.com/ressources-humaines/chief-happiness-officer.htm 

Article les échos: https://devancerdemain.lesechos.fr/talents-de-demain/-happiness-officers-l-amelioration-de-l-environnement-de-travail-par-les-collaborateurs_a-227-5630.html 

Article and video testimony of a CHO – Blog de FranceTvInfo: https://blog.francetvinfo.fr/ondes-positives/2018/06/11/happiness-manager-createur-de-bonheur-au-travail.html 

Sources origin of the trade of CHO: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsable_du_bonheur#Origine 

Find out more about the training, educational requirements and opportunities for the CHO position: https://www.cidj.com/metiers/chief-happiness-officer 

 

You should like it: Intrapreunariat and CSR: An innovative and sustainable markdown

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17-04-2020

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