Happiness at work depends on a salary

AGENCIES:The financial Express :

Wednesday, Oct 03, 2012 at 1408 hrs IST

London: It's official! Happiness at work depends on your earning a better salary than your colleagues, according to a new study.

Researchers found that it is not just your own salary that affects your happiness, but also that of your colleagues!

For you to be happy at your workplace, your earning should not be inferior to those of your peers, that is, of the colleagues you compare yourself to, the study found.

The research by Professor Eduardo Perez Asenjo of Universidad Carlos III de Madrid - Oficina de Informacion Cientifica, showed that relative earnings affect our happiness and our job performance.
In his analysis, he also found that if an individual's earnings are less than those of his peers, he will work more hours.

"The most likely explanation lies in social comparisons, although it could also be due to the idea that if those around me earn more than I do, it might indicate that if I work hard I will end up earning as much as they do," explained Asenjo.

"Therefore, the effect of others' earnings on my happiness is negative, because I compare myself to them and it makes me unhappy to earn less than them; so I work more hours so that I can earn the same as or more than them," he said in a statement.

"It might be a relevant criterion to keep in mind, when setting salaries, that an employee is concerned not only with what she/he earns, but also with what those around her/him earn," he commented, adding that in his perception, a happy worker is much more productive than an unhappy one.