Happiness is key to a sustainable organisation

In successful business, employee happiness must be top priority. It is a key component of business performance, it is a catalyst for company prosperity and it contributes immensely to the long-term sustainability of a firm. In the workplace, happiness translates to employee productivity, engagement and retention, all of which are mutually dependent on one another and are fundamental pillars of an effective and advantageous corporate culture.

According to business blog Growth Everywhere, companies with happy employees outperform their competition by 20 per cent. These are the companies whose workforces are highly engaged and in turn, highly productive and committed. There are clear advantages of having happy and engaged employees, but even so, only 13 per cent of workers around the world consider themselves actively engaged in their jobs, while nearly one quarter are actively disengaged, says data from a 2016 meta-analysis by the Gallup Organisation.

In the Mena region, these figures are largely consistent: only one in 10 Mena employees are engaged in their jobs, while more than half are not engaged and 35 per cent are actively disengaged. However, these figures are more promising in the Arabian Gulf countries, with more than a quarter of employees in Qatar and the UAE reporting they are engaged in their jobs and fewer than 15 per cent reporting they are actively disengaged.

As GCC countries have evolved into business hubs, with their bustling metropolises and ever-expanding enterprise, the firms that flourish are those who understand that at the core of sustainable business growth are employees who are fulfilled and engaged, and by extension, invested in their jobs.

Employee happiness has a direct impact on workplace productivity. In 2015, a study by the University of Warwick found that high employee satisfaction increased productivity by 12 per cent – and last year, a Bayt.com “Employee Loyalty in the Middle East and North Africa” poll found according to Mena professionals, the top three benefits of employee loyalty are higher efficiency and productivity, stronger team relationships and employee satisfaction. The statistics don’t lie: employees themselves recognise the importance of high workplace morale in a company’s success. In turn, prosperous companies dedicate the time and resources needed to keep employees engaged, happy, and fulfilled in their work.

With these figures in mind, du prioritises the happiness of employees, recognising that a skilled, diverse and motivated workforce is crucial in keeping up with the dynamic technology industry and the evolving needs of customers. We have spent the last year looking at ways to enhance how we identify and recruit; how we compensate them; how to provide new opportunities for learning and development; and placing their well-being and happiness as priority.

We have dedicated time and resources to facilitating workplace happiness and employee satisfaction, and we’ve seen our intentions come to fruition. Since 2014, our Gallup employee engagement score has increased from 4.29 to 4.44 overall. In the same time frame, our workforce satisfaction with employee wellness activities has increased from 4.39 to 4.66, and by extension, the impact of wellness activities on employee satisfaction at du has increased from 4.38 to 4.66. At du, we credit our sustained success to our philosophy of building and strengthening an enterprise from the inside out — and we are staunchly committed to improving employee engagement levels throughout our organisation.

Further, by investing in workplace happiness, du does not only support its own strength and success

– it also supports Dubai’s Happiness Agenda, an extension of the Smart City vision which aims to make the emirate the happiest city on earth. Among other objectives of the Happiness Agenda, Dubai aims to guide business leadership to consider the impact of happiness on their companies as key players in the social and economic sustainability. Happiness is often perceived as an obscure and elusive property; but the Happiness Agenda works to develop a shared understanding of it by building a unified definition of happiness to help guide strategic actions in Dubai that promote happiness.

At du, we know that at the core of our sustainability is a happy and engaged workforce, so we are dedicated to ensuring that our employees’ well-being comes first. A sustainable company is built from the inside out – and we support this principle through our many initiatives to prioritise employee happiness.

Happiness translates to employee productivity, engagement and retention, all of which are mutually dependent