Today is International Happiness Day and its Friday! Need I say more!
This wonderful celebration of Happiness is not exactly common knowledge, and I am thinking why not?! So let me tell you why you should know about it!
After watching the shenanigans of St Patricks Day on Tuesday, and persevering with Valentine’s day (actually I probably had the best treat, being treated to a Go Karting session, I’m not a bears and cards person) I thought I would shout about something I am passionate about….Happiness! In whichever form it comes to each individual.
I am a member of a group devoted to research in Happiness, in all aspects of life. And recently they have sent me a pack with some great ideas on how to encourage people to embrace well-being and positive social behaviours.
Interestingly this group, Action for Happiness, found through years of research that one of the most important factors to happiness was the importance of our “connections with other people”. However, in today’s modern society there seems to be a real challenge in making these connections. They go on to state “We are surrounded by people, yet we feel genuinely connected to almost none of them” Source:- Action for Happiness, Happiness Pack 2015, page 2.
Technical advancements and social media have led to fast moving business transactions and the ability to be in contact with a broad amount of people. However is quantity better than quality?? Only you can answer that, however in my instance I am definitely a quality person.
As an agency, working with people is what we do, and this societal shift to technology based business has impacted us in many ways, most importantly it has led to people being reluctant at times to register in person, preferring to do it over the phone, or sometimes purely by email!! Don’t get me wrong we are pro-activists in the online movement…hence this blog, our Facebook page, Twitter plus we perform Skype interviews to assist with candidates in far reaching locations and possibly speed up interview processes. However, we still love and prefer the face to face interaction. And it is true that we create better bonds and connections, we can read people’s pain when they tell us about a life trial they have faced, and equally we can read someone’s joy and witness them light up with energy when they talk about their achievements, or just good things that have happened in their life.
I will be honest I am finding Skype as a really effective tool for interviewing, which is great for me as it has worked in expanding my geographical reach, and identifying new talent pools. However, I will continue to meet my candidates and clients as this is something that quite simply makes me happy to work with them and hopefully leads to strong positive working relationships. And I really don’t want to be in a job where I am unhappy. I think I can say as much for the team here at UEA, as it will come as no surprise to you that we are a group of people who love interacting with other people, and genuinely thrive on having that opportunity to create bonds and sometimes lifetime connections.
We find people their first job, which leads to careers, we assist people get back into work after long breaks, and we support career development and introduce people to companies where they will excel or simply be happy. Love us or hate us, people do not forget these connections. I remember with fondness my first ever candidate, who was an aspiring lawyer back in the day, and is now a fully qualified Lawyer working in the city! We still keep in touch and in fact we spoke just the other day and I know he we assisted him when he was studying and just needed the break and experience and I am not only proud of the opportunity to help him but also enjoy the fact that we connected!
So today, 2015 International Day of Happiness I say let’s get connected! Let’s make real connections, with people all over the world, built on trust, fun times, facing challenging and life threatening situations, sharing sorrow and sadness or just simply being in the same place at the same time.
Today, I will pledge to reach out to someone new (they of course may not want to connect with me). But I hope to continue to reach out to people, whoever they are, from sitting next to them in a restaurant and finding out what lovely food they are eating, to speaking to the checkout lady and asking her how her day has been, right down to telling someone quite frankly and truly how badly my day is going, or how sad I feel about something. Through these connections I know I will be happy as I explore my ‘worldly neighbours’
So, if you see an over smiling, recruitment-consultant-look-a-like heading in your direction in the Uxbridge area; this will probably be me so please feel free to say hello and who knows what great results our connection can bring!
Alternatively, how about putting a big smile on our team’s faces today and drop us a note through Facebook or twitter and share something positive with us today!