How do you measure happiness?
Let's open a can of worms ... how do you measure happiness?
We wanted to know how everybody (my colleagues) feel on a day to day basis. And that is a difficult task. If you want to know if changes have effect you need a baseline ... something you can measure. But .... how do you measure happiness.
Let's describe a couple of methods which you could possible use to "fix" this problem.
Method 1: You might go for the personal approach and just ask (most of the time the best solution).
Depending the size of your company, that might be difficult. Besides, and this might be a Dutch thing, when you ask "Hoe gaat het?" (How are you doing?) you will most likely get "Het gaat goed" (It's going well). Usually people don't tell how they really feel with this casual question. You probably need a very personal connection with that person to get the truth... Depending on the size of your company, you probably won't have that kind of relation ship with everybody.
Method 2: Another approach might be to let people fill out a form how they feel. That might work for a couple of weeks (let's pretend you only ask it on the end of the work week: Friday) but very quickly people will forget. You might want to "force" people to do it, but if you will not keep that up ... people just won't do it.
Method 3: Maybe an automated approach will work better? Let's ask a bot to ping/contact everybody, everyday and ask the same question over and over again: "How YOU doin'?" . Every day? Every day the same question in your mail, Slack or WhatsApp... I would be blocking that bot very quickly!
"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."
~ Samuel Beckett
(I know about the original meaning, but it fits sooo good with this story!)
Specification
We learned from our previous experiments and came up with a couple of conditions the solution needs to meet:
- It shouldn’t feel like ‘another task’ you have to do
- It should require a minimum amount of effort
- It needs to be anonymous
- It should give (some sort of) feedback
- It needs to be something that you are actually motivated to do
- It should be to remember to do
The problem We don’t know how the Fonkys feel on a day to day basis. And we don’t have a way to check if the changes that we are implementing within Fonk actually improves the way the Fonkys feel.
The goal With this project we aim to collect data on when and how Fonkys feel while working at Fonk. The high’s and low’s within this collected data will be used as a starting point for further investigation on the reason why the Fonkys are SUPER happy or maybe not so happy.
Conditions for the solution Based on experiences of the previous happy-employee research there are a few conditions the solution needs to meet: It shouldn’t feel like ‘another task’ you have to do It should require a minimum amount of effort It needs to be anonymus It should give (some sort of) feedback It needs to be something that you are actually motivated to do It should be to remember to do
What we need to solve the problem A way to collect input on how the Fonkys feel Get input every day Make the collected data visible Make it easily interpretable
The concept The idea is simple. We create a tool to indicate the general feelings within Fonk. We will place 5 physical emotion buttons in the hallway, so that when employees come in they can express how they feel and also when they go home again.
The 5 emotion buttons contain these values: Really sad - I’m really not happy Just a little bit sad - I’m not that happy Neutral - I’m ok Happy - I’m good. Super happy - I feel really good!
A scenario You come to the office and walk up the stairs. On top of the stairs in the hallway you see 5 buttons (you literally can’t miss it!). All the buttons represent a certain emotion, form really sad to super happy. All you have to do is to hit the button that represents the way you feel at that moment (and the same goes for when you leave the office).
In this way we can easily collect data on how the Fonkys feel, twice a day even!
Giving input every day, twice a day? Yes! why? How you feel can change during the week. You can have a super shitty day on Monday, but feel super the rest of the week. What will your feedback be if you are only able to share how you feel this week with one emoji? Yes, there is a big chance you will fill in that everything is fine… Which means we are missing important information.
Feel like sharing your emotions in the middle of the day? No problem! Just hit that button.
This is fun and all, but do you get any feedback? One of the things the Fonkys find very important is receiving a reaction. When they give input, they would like get something as output.
It would be super nice if this solution could not only be receiving data but also giving it back to the people in a fun and engaging way. For example: we could connect a screen to it that gives a visualisation on how the office is feeling. We can even transform it into art that represents our emotions. That will give the Fonkys an even bigger stimulant to hit that button!
Questions I’ve heard about the concept: But, What if I’m super frustrated and hit the button 10x? Go for it. We want to get a general idea of who we feel at Fonk, so if you are that frustrated, we will see it and investigate what the problem is.
And what if I’m working but not at the office? You can always ask a colleague to hit the button for you.
The prototype This is the visual representation of how it technically could work. Data input by pressing a button > the signal will be send to the Audrino > the Audrino will send the data to the Firebase database where the time and and the type of button will be saved > database will be connected with chart.js wich creates a visualisation.
What we need for the prototype 5 physical buttons MDF (or something for a case) Arduino (register input and send to database) Firebase database (collect data) + chart.js (data visualisation) (in case we would like to add a visualisation) a screen Some time for a developer and build it
Result, what are we getting out of this? The result will be an overview of snapshots of how we feel at certain moments that could help us point out when we felt happy or not so happy. A start for further investigation!
With the collected dat we can find correlations between how Fonkys feel and specific events and changes. For example: do we actually feel better now we are all billable for x%? And does the team building have a positive effect?
This could be a visualisation of the data in a chart: Y-as = Super sad > super happy _ X-as = over time + events/changes
We should check this weekly, how did the week go? (Discuss this during the MMM?) We have to track the data also over a long period of time to recognise patterns.
A product? This could grow into one of our small products, that one day we could even sell. But for now it could function as a great eye-catcher for new potential clients that come into the office and we have immediately something to talk like the impact lab wall.
For the team! For now this is just a test, but it is a very nice little project for the Fonkys to work on. I’ve talked to a few colleagues and they are super excited. They would love to work on it!