I started my day today answering a phone call from an old time friend, who was pretty unhappy about his current job and was re-locating in search of a great new job to another city. I was forced to think about the general unhappiness that gets created in the day to day cycle at any organization... some people unhappy about work, some about roles, some about compensations, some about environments, some about everything and some about nothing... with me recently having the performance appraisal reviews with most of the Team members, I understand how for certain member a small piece of unpleasantness leads to unhappiness...Then it forced me to review my role into the Team and company.... I see that every company has
CEO - To Manage the Executive actions
CFO - to Manage the Finance piece
CTO - To Manage the Technology piece
COO - To Manage the Operations piece...
Why do organizations not have the CHO? The Chief Happiness Officer? The Executive who can make strategic decisions to keep the employees Happy... Yes.. a role strong enough to do things that would work towards improvising the behaviours, attitudes and help support the employees be Happy... Some argued that the Human Resources should take of this... I strongly disagree.... Human Resources is purely designed to handle recruitment, resource policies etc a few of the tasks that Human resources do, keep them so busy with these tasks that issues related to people and their happiness is not even close to get attended... Smaller companies can afford to have their Sr. Managers take care of Happiness and HR things... but for bigger organizations... a must have is a role that will strive to create Happiness against all odds in the Team.
So then what is this role going to do? Lets define the responsibilities of the Chief Happiness Officer :
1. Responsible to ensure Team delight.
2. Should be organizing a chart and a plan for Team events, including Lunches and Dinners and Parties and outings and workshops
3. Should ensure work place and work culture is kept pleasant
4. co-ordinate effort to organize cross location and Team integrations
5. Primary responsibility is to bring smile on faces in the company
6. Organize sessions for Team building and delight spreads...
Want to add more? Now do you find anyone in your Team who does that? Well you dont need to Hire a new person right away for this.... but if you want to work the way great companies work... its important that you keep your people Happy..... and compensation, benefits, perks and goodies are not the only way to keep people Happy.... Go make one of your team members who is passionate about spreading happiness.. and make him your CHIEF HAPPINESS OFFICER... if you dont have one.... BE ONE
