The Origins of Happiness

Chapter 4

its workers happy, or even its customers. But there is in-

creasing evidence that making workers happy and engaged

does help a firm to make money. For example, one study

focused on the 100 US companies that (based on employee

surveys) were judged to be the “100 Best Places to Work” in

1985. The share prices of those companies were followed

for the next twenty- five years and compared with the share

prices of all other US listed companies. After twenty- five

years, money invested in the 100 Best Places to Work was

worth 50% more than the same amount of money invested

in other companies.^21

Figure 4.2. How life- satisfaction (0– 10) is affected by weekly hours of work—

compared with 0– 10 hours (household panel data) (pooled cross- section)

11–20 hours

21–30 hours

31–40 hours

41–50 hours

50+ hours

–0.35 –0.30 –0.25 –0.20 –0.15 –0.10 –0.05 0.00

Britain

Germany

Australia

USA