Welcome Back to 2015!

January 14th, 2015

Well 2014 is indeed cooked, and in January we begin to drag ourselves back from the beach. Back to work. Missing those afternoon naps and early evening sundowners?

Well if you do find yourself not looking forward to work, having had your batteries re-charged and quality time to think about your purpose and achievement in your job into 2015, then we suggest you buy a copy of Paul Dolan’s book “Happiness by Design.” We’ve put a link to Australian online bookseller booktopia because we, as digital branding and employee value experts, love what founder Tony Nash and his team has achieved with that purely online  brand and his employees.

“Happiness by Design” by Paul Dolan – booktopia

Dolan, a very down to earth East End London boy, works on projects for the UK government to work out where to best spend government funding to improve overall life satisfaction of the country’s citizens. He has written an intriguing book in everyday speak highlighting how happiness is achieved. The pre-read warning is “be careful, after reading it you might change your job or your partner!”

Basically Dolan defines happiness as built around two areas of your life being in balance. Purpose, around what you do in your working time, and Pleasure around how you choose to spend your non-working time. That balance of “Work Purpose” and “Personal Pleasure” delivers “Happiness.”

And here’s the very small surprise. Happiness is not dependent upon income. Who knew? All the research around the world points to the fact that there is no reported increase in happiness in people earning over $75,000 a year.  Something eBrands EVP strategists Marc Iannocone, Mark Aitken and Mark MacWhite deal with when shaping Employee Value Propositions for companies. Our purpose at work, and how our friends see the purpose of our employing companies matters emotionally to all of us.  Big time.  And financially it matters to the company too, as a  company with a poorly viewed or understood purpose, has to pay more for just average, unhappy, employees. Our gut feel is that Tony Nash’s team are paid less, work harder and are happier working for booktopia than they would be at Amazon.

Buy a copy of Dolan’s book, have a read and give us a call.

All the best with your 2015 plans.

Comments? Thoughts?