We’ve been reading a new report called The Happiness Dividend: Exploring employee happiness as a driver of performance, growth and market value by Reward Gateway and the London School of Economics. The study defines employee happiness as both moment-to-moment happiness as well as employee satisfaction, saying that when employees are happy and they enjoy their roles, there are several clear benefits.
Happy employees are:
- 10% to 12% more productive
- 30% less likely to leave their role
Businesses with happy employees enjoy:
- 18% increase in productivity
- 21% rise in profitability
- 20% increase in overall business value
Hopefully, all employers will want their employees to be as happy as possible, but the research shows that it’s not just an ethical consideration. Keeping your employees happy pays “dividends”, adding real value to your business!
The drivers of happiness
The study also looked at the drivers of happiness, or to be more specific, what can make an employee happy in a way that will also boost their performance. Several drivers were found, but the report boiled these down to three key takeaways:
- Connection: relationships with colleagues, managers, and the wider organisation
- Remuneration: pay matters, but so does fairness, recognition, and feeling valued
- Flexibility and growth: development and progression boost happiness, while a poor work-life balance can be very damaging
Each of these drivers is something employers can actively influence with the right strategy in place. If you’re looking to boost employee happiness through creating a solid wellbeing provision, you should check out our Altruist Wellbeing Forum. It’s a peer-led community that looks to help you improve your employee wellbeing provision with practical tools and expert guidance.
There are also tailored online discussions, which, if our members are anything to go by, are guaranteed to bring a little happiness of their own.
How to keep your employees happy
With The Happiness Dividend’s drivers of happiness in mind, how do you create a workplace where people genuinely thrive? We’ve rounded up 10 ideas that can help to keep your employees happy and satisfied in their roles.
1. Build a culture of psychological safety
Building a psychologically safe workplace is one of the most important things you can do to make your employees happy. Psychological safety is where all employees can give their opinions or speak up critically without the fear of being belittled, punished, or bad-mouthed.
Creating a psychologically safe workplace starts with leaders and managers modelling the behaviour they want to see, which means admitting mistakes, allowing employees to speak up with constructive criticism without fear, genuinely listening to feedback, and celebrating experimentation even when the outcome isn't perfect.
Research from the Open Psychology Journal on the Power of Psychological Safety found that “you can achieve your goals and build happier, more engaged employees by fostering psychological safety, regardless of whether your organisation is more risk-averse and conservative or quick-moving and inventive.”
2. Invest in mental health training for managers
Managers have a huge impact on employee happiness. Research from UKG found they affect our mental health more than doctors or therapists, yet according to CCLA’s Corporate Mental Health Benchmark 2025, only 33% of organisations provide their line managers with mental health training.
Mental Health Training for Managers equips your leaders with the skills needed to recognise the signs of poor mental health, hold supportive conversations during difficult times, start conversations about mental health, and signpost people to the right resources. It’s really one of the most impactful investments an organisation can make in terms of an employee’s overall wellbeing and happiness.
3. Offer flexible and hybrid working
Flexibility has become a non-negotiable for many employees, which is no doubt why it’s one of the three core drivers of happiness identified by The Happiness Dividend.
Someone being able to manage their own time and environment has a direct impact on work-life balance and, in turn, on their happiness. Offering genuine flexibility (rather than flexibility in name only) is also a tangible way to demonstrate trust, helping you to connect with your employees and boost their satisfaction with their role.
It’s also important to remember that all employers have to offer flexibility to some degree anyway, as employees have the legal right to request flexible working as per the Employment Rights Act.
4. Embrace neurodiversity
The NHS estimates that around one in seven people in the UK are neurodivergent, with alternative thinking styles including dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, autism, Tourette’s and ADHD.
A huge part of creating a happy workplace for all is to make sure that everyone feels safe and supported, moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach and instead recognising that every employee has a unique set of strengths and challenges.
Simple and thoughtful reasonable adjustments like offering flexible working or designated quiet spaces can remove unnecessary barriers for neurodivergent workers, helping them to thrive. Again, your managers will have a huge role to play here, so it can be well worth investing in Neurodiversity Awareness Training for Managers, which builds the understanding and confidence needed to lead inclusive teams effectively.
5. Support financial wellbeing
Money worries can unfortunately follow employees into work, making it much harder for them to concentrate and perform at their best.
Offering support can make a huge difference to their happiness and there are practical steps that employers can take like offering salary sacrifice schemes, retail discounts, and financial wellbeing workshops on budgeting and saving, signposting external support like Money Helper as well as having an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP).
6. Have a bring your dog to work day
There is real evidence that bringing dogs into the workplace can help to boost employee happiness. Public Health conducted an analysis, finding that “dogs provided an impetus for pleasant breaks from stressful work, improved work-life balance, and helped to develop and enhance social relationships.”
While you might not want to make it company policy, even an occasional “bring your dog to work” day can be a memorable and low-cost way of connecting with your team.
7. Encourage time outdoors
There is a growing body of evidence linking time in nature with better mental health and wellbeing. Studies by the Yale School of the Environment into ecopsychology show that exposure to natural environments leads to stress hormone reductions, fewer instances of anxiety and depression, and even an enhanced immune system.
Encouraging employees to take proper lunch breaks outside, or organising occasional walking meetings, are also great ways of supporting wellbeing and happiness during the working day.
8. Run a wellbeing Lunch and Learn
Lunch and Learns are short, informal sessions that combine learning with lunch and they're one of our favourite ways to show employees that you care about their development, wellbeing and happiness.
We've engaged with well over 1,000 delegates in our sessions. Some of our most popular wellbeing topics include resilience and stress management, avoiding burnout, financial wellbeing, and supporting colleagues through difficult times.
9. Set up an Employee Resource Group (ERG)
Employees are at their happiest when they are listened to, especially if they feel they have a voice that can make a difference within their workplace. One meaningful way of achieving this is through Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), which are formally organised volunteer groups that bring together employees with shared values to champion important issues within a business.
A wellbeing-focused ERG can be a proactive way of delivering your mental health strategy on the ground, helping you to champion available support, reviewing key metrics to find areas for improvement like absence, engagement and even happiness itself. They can also play a vital role in ensuring that equality, diversity and inclusion are at the heart of your wellbeing provision.
10. Develop a wellbeing strategy
All of the above ideas are most effective when they sit within a broader plan for boosting employee happiness.
A comprehensive employee wellbeing strategy considers the needs of your employees alongside the challenges and goals of your business. Research from the University of Oxford found that a one-point increase in employee happiness leads to a 12% increase in productivity, perfectly showcasing how a happy workforce can pay dividends.
How the Altruist Wellbeing Forum can help
If these ideas have got you thinking about your wider approach to employee happiness, you should really take a look at our Altruist Wellbeing Forum.
It's a low-cost online community for HR professionals and wellbeing champions, offering expert-led sessions and peer discussion to help you develop a wellbeing strategy to keep your employees happy and satisfied in their roles.
Not only will our wellbeing specialists deliver structured advice and training, community members also share their ideas and success stories on what’s worked for them, so there’ll be plenty of insights you can take away on how you can improve the happiness of your own employees.
Start your free trial today to explore how it can support your wellbeing strategy.
