Does Your Character Affect Your Happiness at Work?

Being happy at work is really the backbone of corporate wellness, and many factors have an influence over your workplace happiness. However, a new study has found that it’s not just flexi-time or friendly colleagues that make you happy at work; it’s your signature character strengths.

According to Claudia Harzer and Professor Willibald Ruch from the Section on Personality and Assessment at the University of Zurich, you’re more likely to love your job if it is suite to your own signature character strengths. If you can apply your most positive personality traits to your profession, you’ll have more positive experiences within that profession, such as enjoyment, flow, sense of purpose or satisfaction and calling. But what do the researchers mean by “signature character strengths”?

Your character strengths are those which most people would deem to be morally positive, including kindness, teamwork and self-control. If you are particularly well-known for having certain character strengths, and for exhibiting them often, these are referred to as your signature strengths. The chances are that you have between three and seven of these signature strengths.

Harzer and Ruch interviewed over 1,000 working people for an initial study, asking them to answer questions about how their character strengths manifest, whether they are able to apply these strengths at work and how positively they experience their work. Then, the researchers undertook a second study in which the subjects were again asked these questions, but the investigators also asked the participants’ colleagues to rate how applicable the character strengths were to the individuals involved in the study.

The results of the study revealed that the highest value, in terms of positive experiences, lay in the participants who were able to apply four or more signature strengths at work. These individuals were also more likely to regard their word as meaningful, and were generally more satisfied with their work. Whether you’re an employer or an employee, these results can be beneficial when it comes to a new job. As Harzer explained, ‘If it is clarified which character strengths are central for the job before a position is filled, a person can be recruited based on these strengths. Employers and employees only stand to benefit from this.’