Adrienne at GC seems unhappy with this latest bit of management mysticism.
From Going Concern:
Beyond the typical grunt and senior grunt titles -- associate, manager, partner -- there are a group of people employed within public accounting firms whose sole job it is to get quoted in the New York Times, push mythical work/life balance arrangements, make sure the firm has enough "other" people so as not to appear to be racist or sexist or homophobic, and manage sugary sweet social media accounts. So far, we haven't seen a Chief Happiness Officer pop up yet but as it's starting to catch on in Corporate America, don't be all that surprised if one shows up at your firm in a couple years.
From New Republic:
Happiness isn’t something you find, or work toward—it’s something you buy and have delivered. Or at least that’s the premise of one of the newest jobs over in the C-suite. Now, alongside the CEO, CFO, and their ilk, we have the CHO, or chief happiness officer. As the name clearly suggests, the CHO is responsible for the contentment of individual employees, sort of like an h.r. manager, but on steroids; the theory goes that happy workers are productive workers, so happiness turns out to be in the company’s best interest. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many CHOs reside in Silicon Valley—both at start-ups and more blue chip tech companies. But it’s starting to spread: Southern restaurant company Hopjacks created the position in 2012 and the Quality of Life Foundation, an education nonprofit, created one in 2010.This is really supposed to be management's job, best achieved by creating a work environment that doesn't feel like an episode of Oz but hey, whatever.
Delivering Happiness, according to CEO and CHO Jenn Lim, devotes its time to measuring the contentment of clients and to laboring to improve their working conditions. So how exactly does one create joy? “We take a snapshot of all the employees, and basically identify their happiness levels,” Lim says. “And using [the Happy Business Index], we can see, what are the key points of unhappiness?”...MORE
