Research finds no causative link between happiness and doing a better job

 
Here’s a challenging finding for those who argue that helping people to be happier at work is justified by the effect it will have on their productivity.

According to an article in the New York Times, the conventional wisdom that a happy employee is a more productive employee, may not hold up to objective scrutiny.

According to Wright State University psychologist Nathan Bowling, in a new paper called “Is the job satisfaction–job performance relationship spurious? A meta-analytic examination,” his analysis shows other factors at work:

My study shows that a cause and effect relationship does not exist between job satisfaction and performance. Instead, the two are related because both satisfaction and performance are the result of employee personality characteristics, such as self-esteem, emotional stability, extroversion and conscientiousness.

Of course, claiming that the justification for being happy at work comes from increased productivity was always suspect. Why shouldn’t people be happy for it’s own sake? Do we really need to justify treating people well on the basis of some assumed increase in output?

Doing the right thing is it’s own justification. Regardless of the effect on productivity, organizations ought to find ways to make working a better experience. Anything else is not civilized behavior.

What do you think?

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