It’s a Monday morning and I turn on my laptop. As soon as I log in, I am hit by a barrage of emails … many of them reeking of the ChatGPT brand of verbosity, flowery language, and much ado about nothing! One of them catches my attention, announcing the ‘International Day of Happiness’ on March 20. It set me thinking about the idea of happiness at workplaces.

Skimming through my emails, I realised how we have all become accustomed to receiving gentle reminders on otherwise not-so-genteel communications. Emails opening with “Hi! Hope you are well", often followed by a tone and contents sufficient to make you unwell; and finally closing with the “Kindest regards" after delivering a rather unkind blow. Jokes apart, it is ever so common to breeze past colleagues waving a greeting, accompanied by “How are you?". Very often, one has already walked past before the person could possibly offer an authentic response. In the unlikely scenario where this innocuous question was to elicit a genuine response detailing the other’s problems, the situation would be less than ideal.

As the world marks International Day of Happiness on March 20, here’s a gentle reminder to organisations and fellow members of the workforce alike that workplace happiness and well-being calls for scratching beneath the surface. Doses of happiness delivered via khushiyon ki home delivery (read Friday pizza parties), bright yellow cafeterias, chirpy red and purple-hued recreation rooms, and once-in-a-year Zumba sessions may be good but not good enough.

All these measures look to add a touch of the ‘pleasant’ stuff. But there’s more to happiness. And thankfully so! Us thinking-feeling beings seek something more beyond hedonic pleasure (hence the eat, drink, and be merry model has limited utility), and its impact begins to dwindle sooner than later. In fact, even if we factor........

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