Is being happy at work the key to the UK government’s goal of boosting productivity and economic growth? The former Waitrose boss turned big company adviser Mark Price certainly thinks so.
Solving widespread worker unhappiness would be good for the UK’s army of workers and getting people back into the workforce, as well as being the answer to many of Britain’s economic woes, he says.
Since leaving a decades-long career in retail, followed by a stint in government as trade minister, Lord Price – known during his days running the supermarket chain as the “Chubby Grocer” – has embarked on a mission to make organisations recognise the value of a happy workforce, while empowering employees to gain more satisfaction from their toil.
“If people are happy in their jobs they don’t leave, you retain knowledge, you have lower levels of sick absence, all of which leads to more profitable and more effective organisations. And it’s good for individuals,” says Price.
He has the data to back this up, thanks to the 1.5 million workers globally, half of whom are in the UK, who have completed the How Happy Are You at Work? survey run by Price’s organisation WorkL.
Britons are, on average, the unhappiest workers in the G20 group of nations, a fact he believes has a direct link with the economy’s productivity problem, where the UK also has the unhappy position as bottom of the G20.
One of the aims of the Labour government is to get more people back to work – which has been a pervasive problem in Britain since the pandemic, far more than in its European neighbours – and which ministers believe is the best way of cutting the benefits bill.
Reeling off a list, Price says: “All our research shows that if you are happy in your job, you work harder, you’re more productive, you’ll give extra discretionary effort, you’re more likely to be paid more highly than your unhappy colleagues, you’re more likely to be promoted, your mental health will be better and your wellbeing in general will be better.”
WorkL – the L doesn’t stand for anything, Price says, although some presume the name stands for “work-life” – is paid to advise large employers including the retailer Next, the restaurant chains Burger King and Wagamama, as well as many of the UK’s universities, who tend to score poorly for employee satisfaction.
The organisation was also called in to advise the Scottish brewer and bar chain BrewDog during the tenure of the previous chief executive, James Watt, following accusations by former workers that Watt presided over a “culture of fear”.
Price’s focus on happiness will resonate at a time of continual tussles between employers and their staff in the post-pandemic world of work.
Many workers have come to expect a certain degree of flexibility in where and when they fulfil their duties. There have, however, been warnings that such flexibility is not offered to nurses, transport and retail workers among others, dividing Britain into a two-tier workforce.
Price is calling for a contract between all kinds of employees and their employers, a “work happiness charter” which he outlines in his latest book, Work Happier, to be published next month.
He believes that recent decades have brought great strides in workplace safety and in legal rights for employees, without telling them “how work should feel”.
The burden has traditionally been placed on employers to improve treatment of their teams, or to offer them training to allow them to advance.
Price believes that people have a “right to be happy at work”, along with other rights including fair pay, to be equipped with the tools to carry out the job, but also to be “well informed”, “treated with respect” and “given the opportunity to show your ability”.
In return, he says employees have responsibilities and should commit to give their best effort, to be punctual and positive, take responsibility and keep the best interests of their organisation in mind.
Such a mutual undertaking would allow workers to figure out whether they can improve their current position, advance through training, or whether they should consider moving roles within an organisation or even look for a new job elsewhere, even in a different sector.
Just under a third of respondents to WorkL’s survey are “very unhappy”, Price says, which can harm workers’ mental health and damage relationships with their friends and family, who have to listen to their complaints.
The research has also found that sectors such as technology tend to have happier workers, while defence scores bottom; the retail and hospitality sectors also tend to have staff who are less content.
Price traces his interest in workplace happiness back to his 34 years at the John Lewis Partnership, the owner of John Lewis department stores and the Waitrose supermarket chain, where he rose from graduate trainee to deputy chair.
John Spedan Lewis established the co-owned business in 1929, when he decided to transfer all the shares in the family business he had inherited into a trust.
Price says he was told on his very first day that, rather than commercial considerations, the partnership’s “supreme purpose … was the happiness of its workers”.
More than a decade after leaving, he still does not have a bad word to say about a business he describes as “magical” and “very forward-looking”, although he concedes it “may have made a few mis-steps” in recent years.
Indeed, the retailer has had a tricky few years since the pandemic, and it has not paid a bonus to its staff for three of the past four years. Meanwhile, hourly pay rates at Waitrose are below most of its main supermarket rivals, as well as the discounters Aldi and Lidl.
Pay, according to WorkL’s data, is not the main motivator for most employees, with workers reporting they “want to feel that they’re being paid fairly for the job that they’re doing”. This holds true for jobs across all sectors, even lower-paid or lower-skilled roles.
“People want to feel valued,” Price says. “It’s not a pay issue. It’s about how you are being treated in the workplace, the value that you feel you are getting from that, and how your employer is developing you.”
Since the pandemic, surveys have shown that work-life balance now ranks more highly than pay for many employees.
Despite the string of return-to-office mandates from large employers in recent months, Price says WorkL’s data shows that hybrid working does not have a positive or negative effect on productivity, but being able to work in a hybrid way makes most employees happier. “All our data clearly points to the fact that the people who are happiest have that blend of some time in the office, doing office things and connecting, and some time at home.”
Price, a Conservative peer, believes that the Labour government’s employment rights bill, expected to become law in the autumn, “misses the really big point, it should be about how people feel at work”. This, he says, would also help it with its goals of cutting the welfare bill and encouraging people back into the workforce.
“Work is a noble thing. You’re helping yourself, you’re helping your family, you’re helping society … Working is good and I think we have lost sight of that,” he says.
