To Be Happy at Work, Be a Florist Not a Banker

One thing that is clear from the results is that working in a high pay profession doesn’t necessarily make you happy:

• Happiest Professions: Florist, gardener, hairdresser, plumber
• Unhappiest professions: Bankers, IT workers, HR staff

There have been similar surveys before, especially in the USA. Myplan.com found Financial Analysts were bottom of a list of 300 professions for happiness, while singers and fire fighters came top.

City and Guilds notes that those in vocationally-trained skills-based jobs are happier than those in academic-trained, office-based jobs.But the overwhelmingly happiest are the self-employed, those in full control of their work.

This is released in the week that Richard Branson wrote that the best measure of business success is happiness. You won’t be surprised to know I agree with that! And I firmly believe, based on our experience working with a wide range of companies, that all workplaces could be happy. But, as with those happy self-employed, we need to give people control of their jobs and the trust and freedom to feel ownership and satisfaction.

If banking focused more on making their people feel valued and motivated, and less on short-term financial gain, then maybe they would not just be better places to work but give better service to their customers too. I like to think that in that kind of culture scandals like PPI miss-selling might never have happened.

Check out the Happy Manifesto or my list of 80 ideas for a happy workplace, if you want help making your organisation happier.