Unhappy at work? You might just need to cheer up
Personal happiness has a greater effect on job satisfaction than previously believed, according to a new study.
A major new international study exploring the long-term relationship between personal satisfaction and work satisfaction shows that individual happiness is a major factor for a satisfying work life, not the other way around.
Researchers from the United States, Germany and South Australia analysed data from more than 160,000 respondents across global studies demonstrating the connection between job and life satisfaction and their shift over time.
According to the study, your life satisfaction has a 32 per cent stronger effect on your future job satisfaction than the converse. While job satisfaction does have a positive effect on future life satisfaction, its effect is comparatively weaker.
Christian Dormann, an adjunct research professor at the University of South Australia, says that while the leading theory of researchers and psychologists was the “spillover model”, which proposes that your job satisfaction is positively correlated with your life satisfaction, “our research shows the opposite is more powerful”.
“If employees truly want to enhance workplace satisfaction, they need to invest in employees’ broader wellbeing,” Dormann says.
The researchers made several recommendations for employers looking to boost employee satisfaction, including:
- Flexible working arrangements to support personal commitments;
- Encouraging mental health and wellness programs;
- Providing opportunities for personal and professional growth that extend beyond job-related tasks; and
- Fostering a workplace culture that values employees’ lives outside of work.
“This study provides a compelling case for businesses to adopt a people-first approach,” Dormann says.
“Organisations that focus solely on job satisfaction initiatives may be missing a fundamental component of employee happiness.” By prioritising well-being strategies for their employees, organisations can “foster a more engaged and satisfied workforce.”
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The study further highlights the importance of individuals maintaining their personal well-being.
According to the study, efforts made to “improve one form of well-being (i.e., life or job satisfaction) will likely have implications for the other downstream,” with the effect of life satisfaction serving to perpetuate job satisfaction.
With the average person spending a third of their life at work, the findings give us all the more reason to take care of our well-being outside work to make work a little less tiresome.
