The Happiness Index: Why Today’s Employee Emotions Equal Tomorrow’s Business Success, reviewed

We look at a book which aims to dig deeper into employee happiness and the business value of raising these levels. See more about the book The Happiness Index: Why Today’s Employee Emotions Equal Tomorrow’s Business Success here.

The Happiness Index: Why Today’s Employee Emotions Equal Tomorrow’s Business Success, reviewed

This book starts in a funny and self aware way. The author discusses running his ideas in front of various friends and potential clients. One of them says that, if he has unhappy staff, then he fires them. This is naturally not the sort of business use case that the author is looking to validate, but you have to admire the refreshing honesty of his friend, and the author for including the anecdote in this book.

The author also explains that he is not advocating toxic happiness which is reassuring too. Having recently reviewed some books which aim to sell their own flavour of guru saviour vibes, this book feels like a more honest and better realised and considered.

While his friend purported to fire the unhappy ones, Phelan does a good case of explaining the business value of happy, happier, and motivated employees. He also tackles the often cited concern, ‘what happens if we train them and they leave?’ He wisely responds, surely that is far better than not training them and them never leaving.

In this way the book is written with good business intelligence and awareness. You don’t need your employees to be blissfully happy, but if they are utterly depressed, demotivated and even destructive then employees like this are never going to help you to achieve much of anything.

We enjoyed reading this book and it does seem to be the direction in which businesses will go. Sure some will move faster than others, and others will resist this, but this will also enable some businesses to thrive and others to nose dive faster. The recent experiences of Twitter, or X, suggest that a deeply toxic work environment is never going to offer long term appeal to anyone.

An interesting and thought provoking book. Well worth looking at.

See more about the book here

Learn to reconnect your brain and heart to find happiness and engagement at work and in life

In The Happiness Index: Why Today’s Emotions Equal Tomorrow’s Business Success, cofounder and CEO of The Happiness Index Matthew Phelan delivers a fascinating dive into data from over 100 countries and 2 million human beings that helps us understand what really drives our engagement and happiness at work. Grounded in an evidence-based and neuroscientific approach, the book skips the memes and inspirational quotes in favor of data and insights based on real-time information from real people.

In the book, you’ll learn that “engagement” is what our brains need, and “happiness” is what our hearts need. You’ll discover what we need to thrive and succeed in work and life, as well as:

• A step-by-step approach to learning from real-world data about happiness
• Practical lessons applicable to any organization that will help both individuals and groups succeed
• Case studies from recognizable firms around the world and interviews with executives to help bring the data to life

A simultaneously inspirational and hands-on treatment of a subject of singular importance to everyone in the working world, The Happiness Index will benefit executives, managers, and other business leaders, as well as founders, business owners, and anyone else interested in helping the people around them flourish.

Matt Phelan is the Co-founder and CEO of The Happiness Index. He’s an expert on the future of work and how data can help us improve the world of work. Matthew also hosts the Happiness and Humans podcast, authored Freedom to be Happy: The Business Case for Happiness, and founded The Happiness and Humans Community.

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