Happiness Planet Support System for Promoting Management Objectives in Partnership with Employees - Hitachi
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FEATURED ARTICLES Improving QoL Where and How People Live
Happiness Planet
Support System for Promoting Management Objectives in Partnership
with Employees
While it is the role of management to formulate and pursue objectives for the future of
the company, simply announcing these is not enough on its own to gain buy-in from
employees. This is a consequence of the inevitable gap between these objectives and
employees’ existing work, making it difficult for them to act on their own initiative.
Hitachi developed Happiness Planet as a solution for achieving three prerequisites that
it has identified as necessary for achieving management objectives: the breaking down
of objectives, proactive participation by employees, and risk monitoring. The solution is
made up of a smartphone app for employees and a web application for management.
The benefits of the solution have been demonstrated in a public PoC trial involving
4,300 participants across 83 companies and Hitachi now plans to roll out the solution
for commercial use.
Satomi Tsuji
Nobuo Sato, Ph.D.
Keita Shimada
Koji Ara, Ph.D.
Kazuo Yano, Ph.D.
organization where employees can quickly grasp the objec-
tives being handed down by management and act on their
1. Introduction own initiative to seek out, identify, and execute appropriate
actions based on their workplace knowledge.
The COVID-19 pandemic is causing a major shakeup in Hitachi is proposing a hybrid approach to implement-
economies, politics, and value criteria around the world. ing management objectives that combines top-down and
Many companies have responded to this uncertain future by bottom-up methods that it calls “happiness management”
realigning their management objectives, including by mak- because of its characteristic of relying on the proactive par-
ing the shift to remote working, changing their key product ticipation of employees. This article describes this happiness
range, and revising their supply chains. If a company can be management approach and the Happiness Planet solution
thought of as a large vessel, then the managers tasked with that provides the functions needed to put it into practice,
its steering need their operations to be flexible and agile. and reports on how it performs in actual use.
Achieving this in turn requires that the top-down communi-
cation of management objectives be combined with bottom-
up activity by employees. This is because vertically structured 2. Happiness Management
and command driven organizations that work from the top
down lack the ability to respond flexibly, whereas those that The three requirements seen as vital for happiness man-
work the other way around struggle to keep up with the agement are the “breaking down” of objectives (translat-
pace of societal change. In other words, what is needed is an ing them into a form that is meaningful for employees),
74.proactive participation by employees, and risk monitoring. these three elements are missing, diminishing their produc-
In particular, having employees align with management tivity and potentially leading to their resignation. Equating
objectives in a way that makes them feel motivated and this to worker happiness, the prerequisite of happiness man-
energized in their daily work are both crucial factors in agement is to manage in a way that keeps employees happy.
whether or not these objectives will be achieved. This sec-
2. 2
tion reviews past research into worker happiness before
Happiness Management Approach
going on to describes the happiness management approach.
Figure 2 shows a flow chart of happiness management, which
2. 1
pursues management objectives from both the top down and
Worker Happiness
the bottom up. For simplicity, the organization has been
This section looks first at how to express what constitutes represented as made up of three layers: senior management,
desirable conditions for workers, which is to say feeling a administrators (middle management), and employees.
sense of motivation, considering the indices used to mea- First of all, the objectives laid out by management are
sure motivation and its component parts (see Figure 1). broken down by administrators into organizational goals
The first of these is the idea of psychological capital in a way that is relevant to the issues facing each workplace.
whereby individuals are possessed of a positive mental Each morning, the employees decide for themselves which
energy. Proposed by a group led by the US management actions to pursue on the basis of these organizational goals.
professor Fred Luthans, this indicator refers to having a They use the app each day to select which actions to take
positive attitude toward one’s own self that takes forms and participate in measurement of the social happiness
such as self-confidence and motivation. It has been shown index. This information is automatically passed on to the
that corporations staffed by people with high psychological administrators who use it to provide individualized support
capital have higher performance(1). and as a basis for recognition and rewards. An important
The second is psychological safety, which means hav- point is that this information from the workplace be used
ing confidence in one’s relationships with colleagues. It to analyze the outstanding issues that bear upon manage-
refers to relationships where people feel free to express their ment achieving their objectives so that it can be taken into
opinions and concerns and has been found in an in-house account when making decisions on budgeting and per-
survey by Google LLC to be a common factor in successful sonnel reallocation to support the workplace. This avoids
organizations(2). Studies by Hitachi have found that positive situations where management objectives fizzle out, instead
relationships with the people around one manifest in the getting them achieved through practices that take account
characteristics of one’s physical movements(3), (4), and that of the actual situation in the workplace.
the social happiness index used to measure this also serves Two features of this approach are: (1) employees choose
to quantify this psychological safety. what actions to take for themselves, and (2) IT is used to
The third concept is that of alignment with management communicate the issues and needs of the workplace back
objectives, meaning employees have a tangible sense that to administrators and management.
their work is contributing to the future of the organization For the former, an “action” is something that explicitly
to which they belong. indicates how to go about the day’s work. While possible
Employees find it difficult to feel motivated if any of examples might range from simple actions such as “smile
Figure 1 — Worker Happiness
A summary of past research indicates that feel- Trusted and frank
ing a sense of motivation equates to sharing the I feel confident from
organization’s vision while experiencing both a being part of a team
positive attitude and trusted relationships. There Trusted
Positive attitude relationships
is a need to manage organizations in a way that Self-confidence and
motivation
keeps employees in this state. I have a positive attitude
a Psychological Psychological
w
wn
of belief in my own capital safety
capabilities
Sharing vision
Alignment with
management
objectives Engagement and purpose
I have a tangible feeling that
my work is contributing to
the future of the company
Hitachi Review Vol. 70, No. 1 074–075 75.Figure 2 — Happiness Management Approach
A feature of this approach is that it works from both the top down and the bottom up. The key is for individual employees to select for themselves which
action they want to perform, taking into consideration their work for the day and the organizational goals. This ensures that management objectives
permeate all corners of the organization and are carried out in a way that suits the particular circumstances of each workplace.
Formulation of Analysis of Budgeting, human
management objectives outstanding issues resources allocation
Example: Shift to working High level of employee concern Use of groupware, assignment
practices based on remote work regarding training of new recruits, fall of more personnel to support
Management in happiness in support departments departments
Achievement
Survey workplace issues
monitoring
Diminished communication Use action statistics to review level
within team of achievement and understand
employee concerns
Break down into Happiness
Administrators organizational goals monitoring
Hold small daily information Use management tool to
sharing sessions identify high-risk personnel
and organizations
Daily action Social happiness Recognition and
Select, share, perform index measurement Targeted support
rewards
Plan for today: Listen to concerns and Recognize employees
Hold study session for new recruits adjust work allocation who have undertaken
Employees How are you feeling today: unique actions
A bit short of sleep
Performed as part of daily routine
when greeting colleagues” to more difficult actions such as intervals, they can only be interpreted in retrospect and are
“present to customers with overseas deployment in mind,” in difficult to put to use in the achievement of management
all cases an action is a verbal expression of how employees goals. Use of IT, on the other hand, means that the daily
should go about the tasks they recognize as making up their record keeping of employees can be put to timely use as
daily work, one that has been reinterpreted in a way that monitoring information.
aligns with the organizational goals. Past management was In this way, the proactive participation of employee is the
frequently based on superiors instructing their employees key to happiness management and should lead to the rapid,
on what to do. The problem is that the people who under- flexible, and reliable achievement of management objectives.
stand the situation in the workplace best are the employ- There are a wide variety of management objectives
ees themselves. Moreover, employees are more likely to be to which happiness management can be applied, such
enthusiastic about activities for which they are internally as onboarding of new recruits or an interdepartmental
motivated. This makes it desirable for employees to decide approach to sales from a customer standpoint. The example
for themselves how to go about their work. On the other used in Figure 2 is a shift to working practices based on
hand, because changes in management objectives can shift remote work. The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted
the basis on which past work has been undertaken, they can a decision by Hitachi to make widespread use of remote
cause workplaces to temporarily get out of sync, increasing work(5). With the shift from traditional office work toward
the risk of stress or miscommunication. This creates a need a central role for remote work having been forced upon
for appropriate support to be provided to employees while the company, workers and administrators have experienced
also monitoring their circumstances and concerns. The roles some confusion in the process of adopting the new practices.
of administrators, then, are to take corrective action should As an example, the following section tells a story from the
the way employees go about their actions get significantly perspective of the people involved. For ease of understand-
out of step with the goals, to use rewards and recognition ing, some fictional material has also been included.
to motivate employees, and to offer individualized support
2. 3
when monitoring indicates heightened risk.
Example
With regard to (2), the use of IT to provide feedback
to administrators and management, the information that Having made the transition to remote work in response to
employees enter into the app is extremely useful for under- management objectives, issues arise with employees being
standing what is happening in the workplace. While many unsure about when they are meant to consult with their
companies already use employee questionnaires or satisfac- seniors and experiencing concerns about duties not being
tion surveys, because these tend to be conducted at yearly allocated in a balanced way. The hypothesis is that this is
76.FEATURED ARTICLES
due to a lack of sharing of the sort of minor information from management objectives are shown in large text at the
that does not meet the threshold of being part of formal top of the screen. Each morning, employees select which
reporting, such as trivial concerns or the sense of how well action they want to perform while thinking over their
things are going that naturally gets passed on through work for the day. Functions include earning points in the
casual conversation. Accordingly, holding brief daily gath- app, sharing comments with other team members, and the
erings to consult about these minor issues is set as one of anonymous passing on of thanks, with the aim of improv-
the organizational goals. As a result, the list of actions that ing worker happiness being an objective of its design. It is
employees can choose from each morning include such hoped that with extended use the app will help to boost
options as announcing what work they have planned for psychological capital and the team’s psychological safety.
the day or telling people how they are feeling or about an The function for measuring the social happiness index also
interesting book, allowing for comments to be entered in presents employees with their own daily score on the index.
the manner of casual chat. The aim of this is to improve psy- This score value is only visible to the person concerned,
chological safety within the team, creating an atmosphere with administrators and management only having access to
where it is easy to raise matters with other people. To allow combined scores at the organizational level or for specific
for monitoring, employees also keep their smartphones in choices of action.
their pockets so that these devices can measure the social
3. 2
happiness index. The collated records of this are reported
Management Tool for Administrators
to administrators and management to facilitate the early
identification of people or groups at high risk as well as the Figure 4 shows an example screenshot from the manage-
understanding and support of workplace needs. ment tool that administrators can use to check what is
happening in the workplace (a web application on a per-
sonal computer browser). The psychological weather chart
3. Happiness Planet translates the situation for employees into numerical values
that express stress risks in the form of a weather report. As
Happiness Planet is a solution that supports happiness man- noted earlier, the social happiness index is not the person’s
agement. This section describes the associated application. subjective happiness but rather represents the positivity of
their relationship with those around them. When this is used
3. 1
in a statistical manner to collate a social happiness index for
Application for Employees
a number of colleagues with close relationships, it becomes
Figure 3 shows the application that employees use to enter possible to express the positivity of an individual’s situation
and view information(6). The organizational goals derived as a number. This result is then displayed in the form of a
Figure 3 — Happiness Planet Application
The screenshots are from the smartphone application used by employees. By facilitating the selection, sharing, and reporting of a daily action, the applica-
tion provides the core functions for improving worker happiness. It also provides feedback, using an accelerometer to measure the social happiness index.
Vision-oriented Proactive Foster empathy Social happiness index
measurement
Select from a list of actions based Announce today’s action, Share selected actions Measure by carrying smartphone in
on organizational goals earn points in app on timeline pocket and provide benefits of
performing action as feedback
Onboarding program for new recruits Matsumoto 30 minutes ago
Happiness temperature
Activities for Jun. 28 LV. 39 Message received. Message
received …
Challenge undertaken. Change on
Establish a new team Measurement duration: 1h 30m
previous
Hanako Review artificial intelligence case studies
Number
of people LV. 25 Report: Started researching on the web. Next step is to go
Teams
124 Kohapi points and talk to people.
150 10 Negotiator
Become a pirate king!
Recommended challenge
Onboarding program for new recruits
Yuji 30 minutes ago
Establish a new team Lv.39
Number Submitted new challenge.
of people Teams Look for ways to help team
Stay on track even when 150 10
stressed. This keeps you # Communication # Teamwork
Try working somewhere moving forward even
a little different Kathy Tucker 40 minutes ago
when you can’t see Whole-body awareness and progress
Lv.39
where you are going.
Announced challenge.
of nearby movement
Recommendation rating (happiness benefit)
Think of a new idea first thing in the morning
(out of 125)
Report: Thinking about new product ideas in the morning 5 50%
when I have a clear head. Before starting on my e-mail. 4
3
2
4%
15%
6%
No. of
declarations 134
1 20%
Utilize opportunities for Now that work is just Time line Start measuring Taro Hitachi
people to get together getting started, take a Lv.39
and share their wisdom look at the big picture
Everyone Teams
Activity Log Challenge Program Recommendation for cases like this:
• When you want to adopt a wider perspective
• When stuck for ideas
Alignment with Improve psychological Improve psychological Feedback using
management objectives capital safety objective indices
Hitachi Review Vol. 70, No. 1 076–077 77.Figure 4 — Psychological Weather Chart (Management Tool)
The chart provides a weather report on how employees are getting on. On the basis of social happiness index statistics from a group of people who are
closely involved with one another at work, the chart shows fine weather when relationships with others are positive and rain when negative. This provides
early warning of when subordinates are in need of support.
Happiness Planet for Managers
Logged in Data: As of Wed. Jan. 8, 2020 Taro Matsuda
Mariko Tanaka 8.1 °H Local weather (psychological weather*) * Social happiness index for colleagues (mean value for
Tanamari this person’s colleagues over preceding two weeks)
7.2 °H
Wed. Jan. 8, 2020 10.0
Your subordinates (8 people) 9.5
Name (roll call order) ▼ Local weather ▼ Change ▼ 9.0
8.5
Chihiro Suzuki 8.8 °H 8.0
Suzuki
7.5
7.0
Takahiro Hayashi 8.1 °H 6.5
Hayashi
6.0
6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
January 2020
Tomoyuki Tsuda 10.1 °H
Tsuda
Characteristics of nearby people * Colleagues chosen by this person as people with whom they work closely
(selected on November 30, 2019)
Taro Matsuda 7.2 °H
Matsutaro Taro Matsuda Chihiro Suzuki Tomoyuki Tsuda Maho Takada Yu Sasaki Hisashi Katsuta
Explorer Operator Moodmaker Negotiator Balancer No response
Yasue Kuroda 7.7 °H
Kurobee
Figure 5 — Map of Organization’s Happiness Characteristics (Management Tool)
The map shows a graph of psychological capital plotted against psychological safety on which anonymized data from other companies has been super-
imposed. The ideal is to make changes that shift people toward the “engagement” square at the top right. The map provides a way to identify early on
which departments need assistance with the process of implementing management objectives.
Changes in company’s happiness characteristics
Psychological state in which people 24
feel uncertainty, having a positive
Psychological state in which people Uncertainty Engagement
attitude but having yet to establish
trusted relationships with those feel engaged, having a positive
around them attitude and trusted relationships 22
with those around them
20 Development
Uncertainty Engagement Sales
= ongoing happiness 18
Positive attitude Psychological
Psychological capital capital
16 Administration
Disempower- Finance
Passivity
ment
14
Trusted relationships Prior to remote work
Psychological state in which Psychological safety Psychological state in which people
people feel disempowered, lacking feel passive, having trusted 12 After remote work
introduced
a positive attitude and having yet relationships with those around them
to establish trusted relationships but not themselves having a positive Other companies Passivity
with those around them attitude
10
50 60 70 80 90 100 110
Psychological safety (social happiness index)
weather report icon for sun, cloud, or rain. The variation over experiencing both a positive attitude and trusted relation-
time is also shown as a trend chart enabling the early iden- ships. The graph on the right of Figure 5 also shows an
tification of subordinates whose situation is deteriorating. example of the changes that accompanied the introduction
The happiness characteristics map for an organization of a management objective (in this case, remote work) in
shown in Figure 5 provides a graphical means of compar- different departments. A sudden change in management
ing organizations in terms of the two axes of psychological objectives tends to place a burden on certain employees and
capital and psychological safety, the two aspects of worker departments. In this example, the changes in the finance
happiness from Figure 1 that allow for such comparison. and administration departments were in an undesirable
Organizations that perform highly on these two scores direction (toward the bottom left), indicating a need to
can be thought of as being in good psychological condi- prioritize support for those areas.
tion to take on new challenges, with individual employees
78.FEATURED ARTICLES
5) Hitachi News Release, “Promoting Work Style Reforms
with Telecommuting as a Driver of Change” (May. 2020)
4. Performance in Practice in Japanese, https://www.hitachi.co.jp/New/cnews/
month/2020/05/0526.html
6) N. Sato et al., “Enjoyably Sustaining Motivation for Work
Hitachi has already demonstrated the benefits for psycho-
Style Reforms through Digitalization,” Hitachi Review, 67,
logical capital in a public proof-of-concept (PoC) trial using pp. 682–687 (Oct. 2018).
the Happiness Planet app for changes in working practices 7) Hitachi News Release, “Confirming the Effect of Increasing
that involved 4,300 participants across 83 companies(7). As ‘Psychological Capital’ as a Measure of ‘Confidence in Work’
shown in Figure 2, the key to success with management and ‘Work Motivation’ of Workers Utilizing the Smartphone
App ‘Happiness Planet’ Supporting Work Style Reform”
objectives lies in proactive participation by employees. The (Nov. 2019) in Japanese, https://www.hitachi.co.jp/New/
results of the PoC indicate that the game-like format of cnews/month/2019/11/1115.html
the app and its functions for encouraging easy interaction 8) Hitachi News Release, “Established a New Company
between those involved have succeeded in achieving just based on ‘Dejima’ approach, which Aims to Create New
that, with a majority of participants responding that they Industries with Technology for Visualizing Happiness”
(Jun. 2020), http://www.hitachi.com/New/cnews/
were “happy”(6). The solution has now started to be rolled month/2020/06/200629.html
out to a number of companies as a commercial service for
pursuing management objectives, where it is being used for
purposes such as getting new recruits onboard or improving
sales performance. A new company, Happiness Planet Ltd., Authors
was established in July 2020 with plans to expand delivery Satomi Tsuji
of the service more widely(8). Center for Exploratory Research, Research &
Development Group, Hitachi, Ltd., Happiness Project
of Future Investment Division, Hitachi, Ltd., and
Happiness Planet, Ltd. Current work and research:
5. Conclusions Service development of Happiness Planet. Society
memberships: The Academy of Management (AOM).
This article has described an approach to achieving manage- Nobuo Sato, Ph.D.
Center for Exploratory Research, Research &
ment objectives that works from both the top down and the Development Group, Hitachi, Ltd., Happiness Project
bottom up. A feature of this approach is that employees of Future Investment Division, Hitachi, Ltd., and
feel a sense of motivation as they participate proactively in Happiness Planet, Ltd. Current work and research:
Development of measuring technology and business
putting management objectives into action. Hitachi devel- start-up of Happiness Planet. Society memberships:
oped the Happiness Planet solution, which is equipped IEEE, The Institute of Electronics, Information
with the functions needed to achieve this, including the and Communication Engineers (IEICE), and the
Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ).
app for employees and management tool for administra-
tors described here. Hitachi intends to continue developing Keita Shimada
this business with the aim of creating a society in which Center for Exploratory Research, Research &
Development Group, Hitachi, Ltd., Happiness Project
everyone working amid a whirlpool of great change can feel of Future Investment Division, Hitachi, Ltd., and
motivated to put their capabilities to good use. Happiness Planet, Ltd. Current work and research:
Development of IT platforms of Happiness Planet.
Koji Ara, Ph.D.
References Intelligent Information Research Department, Center
1) F. Luthans et al., “Psychological Capital and Beyond,” Oxford for Technology Innovation – Artificial Intelligence,
University Press Inc., New York (Mar. 2015). Research & Development Group, Hitachi, Ltd.,
Happiness Project of Future Investment Division,
2) C. Duhigg, “What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Hitachi, Ltd., and Happiness Planet, Ltd. Current work
Perfect Team,” The New York Times Magazine (Feb. 2016), and research: Business start-up of Happiness Planet.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what- Society memberships: IPSJ and the Japanese Society
google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team. for Artificial Intelligence (JSAI).
html
3) K. Yano et al., “Measuring Happiness Using Wearable Kazuo Yano, Ph.D.
Technology,” Hitachi Review, 64, pp. 517–524 (Nov. 2015). Hitachi, Ltd., Happiness Project of Future Investment
Division, Hitachi, Ltd., and Happiness Planet, Ltd.
4) S. Tsuji, et al., “Effect of Personal Data Aggregation Method Current work and research: Business start-up of
on Estimating Group Stress with Wearable Sensor: Happiness Planet. Society memberships: IEEE Fellow
Consideration of Group Dynamics in Workplaces,” 2017 IEEE and member of IEICE, the Japan Society of Applied
International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Physics (JSAP), the Physical Society of Japan (JPS),
(SMC), Banff, AB, pp. 1523–1528 (Oct. 2017). and JSAI.
Hitachi Review Vol. 70, No. 1 078–079 79.You can also read
