Voice of HR ( Its my ascent ) Article on - India Inc need a Chief Happiness Officer One might be inclined to say that

happiness in the context of Indian corporate employees is an elusive metaphor , an utopian idea, which can only be realized in the realms of fantasy .Happiness ,off course, is a relative term and means so many different things to different people .But yes, happiness in some measure ,by any benchmark ,is essential for the survival of a healthy organizational culture. In order to infuse this culture in Indian corporate we do not need a happiness officer, we rather need happy officers at the key positions of Operations and HRD. People who can trust ,be trusted, have faith in and empathize with the employees .People who can frame policies and procedures which instill confidence in the employees ,produce mechanisms which provide support and promote self belief , in nutshell ,people who are able to engage with employees as humans first and then employees. The need is of an organizational culture with a well defined set of vision, mission and goals as well as managers with a firm belief in these goals. Such an environment would enable employees to appreciate what the Firm intends to achieve in the long term and how it intends to go about it .It will thus help them to align their everyday activities towards those goals. Once the employees personal goals and the organizational goals are in sync the creation of a work environment which exudes happiness, understanding, empathy and holistic development of the organization is inevitable.

In tackling the subject one must also dwell on defining what happiness means for most people. Is it the high performance at work, a healthy work- home balance, meeting strategic life goals ,having a good social life or just the opportunity to survive with the least efforts. Happiness is also associated with stress levels. Although mild stress levels are essential for peak performance ,excessive stress, be it at work, home, family or even societal pressures does effect the happiness quotient of people .Off course, the capacity to withstand stress differs from person to person, in quite a measure, and is therefore difficult to benchmark in absolute terms for the purpose of measurement and scaling. So then, how do we promote happiness in the workplace .Will it help to have a dedicated person with the portfolio of promoting happiness in the organization. I would argue to the contrary, what the organization needs more is a happiness orientation which pervades all functions. This can be achieved by adopting systems and procedures which allow employees to work independently without too much interference and binding constraints, have the opportunity to handle new responsibilities , learn new skills, be appreciated at work, feel important for a job done well, feel proud of their routine work and have the freedom, authority and responsibility to speak up and be heard without fear of reprisal (like pulling the andon cord in the Toyota production system).If we take motivation from Maslows theory of needs ,an employees satisfaction level is highest when his higher needs are satisfied. These needs are self esteem and self actualization needs, in this context , Job satisfaction, self worth and self belief(or rather the employees perception of the same) which are influenced, in turn, by his knowledge, behavior ,personality and attitudes.

These needs can only be achieved in the organization if the core organizational processes ie. Performance management, Talent management, Trg and development, compensation and reward, HRP and turnover are all oriented towards employee engagement along with the realization that the human capital of an organization is the real intrinsic worth of the organization as also recognized by the stock market which values the human capital and other attributes by a high P/E ratio. If an organization needs a specialist for this realization to dawn then they definitely need a happiness officer but he must be suitably empowered to be effective and the top management must believe in the idea of employee engagement to make the concept a success. Article submitted by Prashant mishra HR specialist, govt sector Experience - 21 years Qualification- post graduate in mech engg