Butterfly explored weekly employee happiness and engagement trends across more than 5,000 employees in the U.S. and EMEA. The following report outlines key themes and best practices for managers and HR professionals based on the data.

1. Happiness Index 2016
Butterfly explored weekly employee
happiness and engagement trends
across more than 5,000 employees in
the U.S. and EMEA. The following
report outlines key themes and best
practices for managers and HR
professionals based on the data.

2. info@butterfly.ai
butterfly.ai
Butterfly, the first mobile leadership training tool and chatbot, analyzed a sample
of 5,000 users in the U.S. and EMEA to unearth trends in employee happiness
across five engagement drivers. These drivers were identified as the top factors
affecting employee satisfaction by academic researchers from the University of
Oxford and Columbia University.
Employees were asked to rank their work satisfaction with each driver weekly, on a scale of 0 to 10.
Employees were also asked to indicate their overall happiness each week by responding to a simple
prompt: “How is your week going?”
We tracked responses to the five drivers and overall happiness once a week, each week, from
January to November 2016.
Roles & Responsibilities
How employees feel about their specific role within the team and broader organization.
Management:
How employees feel about their direct manager and overall management team at the
organization.
Team’s Work / Colleagues:
How employees feel about their peers within their specific teams and within the broader
organization.
Workplace / Environment:
How employees feel about the physical setting in which they work.
Work/Life Balance:
How employees feel about the impact of their specific jobs on their overall lifestyles and/or
family life.

3. info@butterfly.ai
butterfly.ai
THE BIG PICTURE
Tracking employee happiness over time
Using Butterfly’s mobile leadership and employee feedback tool, 5,000+ employees in the U.S. and EMEA
reported on their overall happiness and job satisfaction each week. The graph below illustrates the ebbs
and flows of their overall happiness and job satisfaction as defined within five key drivers.
Read on to learn the key themes uncovered
Overall Happiness & Job Satisfaction Drivers Over Time
5
5.75
6.5
7.25
8
1/22/20 2/12/20 3/4/20 3/25/20 4/12/20 5/2/20 5/23/20 6/14/20 7/4/20 7/25/20 8/15/20 9/5/20 9/27/20 10/17/20 11/7/20 11/28/20
Overall Happiness Roles & Responsibilities Management Team’s Work/Colleagues Work/Life Balance Work Environment
ReportedScore(0-10)

4. HAPPINESS INDEX
Key findings
After digging into the week-by-week data across markets, some interesting trends
emerged – especially as it pertained to how employees felt about key drivers relative to
overall happiness. Skip to the next page for a quick summary of those correlations.
Work/Life Balance was consistently the biggest pain-point for employees across all
markets.
Average monthly ratings in this category were consistently the lowest across all five
drivers.
Despite the stereotype that Europeans enjoy a more healthy integration of work and
home life, EMEA employees were only slightly more satisfied than their U.S.
counterparts when it came to Work/Life Balance.
1
Work/Life Balance: U.S. vs. EMEA
4
5
6
7
8
1/22/20 2/26/20 3/28/20 5/2/20 6/6/20 7/11/20 8/15/20 9/19/20 10/24/20
US EMEA
info@butterfly.ai
butterfly.ai
ReportedScore

5. info@butterfly.ai
butterfly.ai
Of all categories, employees were most consistently satisfied by Team’s
Work / Colleagues, followed by Management.
That said, Team’s Work / Colleagues demonstrated the lowest correlation among
all drivers when it came to overall average happiness.
The chart below illustrates the relative correlation of each driver to overall
happiness. Based on our data, Work/Life Balance was most correlated to overall
happiness, followed by Workplace / Environment. Put a different way, if
employees reported high scores for drivers that correlate closely to overall
happiness, there was a greater chance that they were happier overall.
In terms of overall happiness, EMEA employees were consistently more
satisfied at work than U.S. employees.
European happiness dipped lower than the U.S. average for all drivers during
just a few short periods over the course of 2016.
Average employee happiness was the lowest in mid-April, followed by
mid-February.
Employees showed the highest happiness scores in early September (around
Labor Day), followed by the summer months (June to July) and late February.
Read on to learn what this means for you
Overall Happiness: U.S. vs. EMEA
5
6
7
8
9
1/22/20 2/26/20 3/28/20 5/2/20 6/6/20 7/11/20 8/15/20 9/19/20 10/24/20
EMEA US
Correlation Coefficients Relative to Overall Happiness
W
ork/Life
Balance
W
orkplace
/
Environm
ent
Roles&
Responsibilities
M
anagem
ent
Team
/
Colleagues
75%
68%
59% 57%
45%
2 3
4
ReportedScore

6. info@butterfly.ai
butterfly.ai
TOP TAKEAWAYS
FOR MANAGERS
The findings of our Happiness Index reveal actionable
takeaways for managers and talent teams. Here’s how you can
put this data to work to improve employee satisfaction and
build stronger, more collaborative cultures.
There is a very strong correlation between Work/Life Balance and overall
employee happiness.
Other drivers, such as team dynamics (defined here as (“Team’s Work /
Colleagues”), while independently important, have less of an impact on
overall employee happiness.
>> What this means for you: Managers and HR teams should be cognizant of
workload and how team members collectively feel about the balance of their
careers and home life. Per our findings, investing time and resources into
improving Work/Life Balance will make a bigger impact on overall satisfaction
than improving relationships between colleagues and improving the office
environment. It is, quite simply, the most efficient way to increase overall
employee happiness.
1

7. info@butterfly.ai
butterfly.ai
The driver that least correlates with overall happiness is Team’s Work / Colleagues,
meaning that promoting strong social relationships and friendships in the office,
while nice to have, should not be prioritized over other tactics.
At the end of the day, Work/Life Balance; Management and Roles & Responsibilities
exhibit a stronger correlation to overall happiness than the relationships employees
build with co-workers and the general office environment (e.g. “work perks”). Focusing
on increasing the former three areas will go the farthest when it comes to promoting
employee happiness.
>> What this means for you: As was chronicled in Dan Lyons’ book, “Disrupted: My
Misadventure in the Startup Bubble,” released in 2016, a common mistake among
young companies is to over-prioritize the social and environmental aspects of work (e.g.
having kegs in the office or a game room). While most employees appreciate work
perks and forming friendships with their colleagues, these factors do not correlate as
strongly as tactics such as helping teams understand the company vision and their own
career paths within the organization.
Employee happiness wavered for reasons that could not be explained by
macro-trends occurring in society and culture.
Per this study, dips in employee engagement were seemingly unrelated to
factors such as quarterly transitions, holidays and even major cultural or
geopolitical events, such as the historical Brexit vote (late June 2016) and the
U.S. Presidential Election (November 2016).
>> What this means for you: Managers and HR teams able to track team
happiness on a weekly basis will be better equipped to address fluctuations in
job satisfaction as they happen. The most efficient way to markedly improve
employee engagement and happiness is to create a consistent feedback loop
and openly discuss workload so that team members know their employer
prioritizes a healthy balance of career and lifestyle.
2 3
Butterfly is the first-ever mobile management training
and chat bot designed to develop the next generation
of corporate leadership. Weekly pulse surveys allow
managers and talent teams to view and act on data in
real-time, and Butterfly’s self-learning virtual coach,
Alex, is there every step of the way. Managers at
companies like Coca-Cola, GE, Ticketmaster, Jet.com,
Publicis and more rely on Butterfly to build stronger,
happier teams.
Learn more about us at www.butterfly.ai.
“It makes a lot of sense to measure employee happiness in a way that transcends the
workplace and thus presents a more holistic picture of the state of employee happiness.
We know through research that the general wellbeing of an employee is causally related
to productivity and performance — as such, managers are advised to look beyond just
the traditional job satisfaction item and should seek to improve the work/life balance of
employees, as the data from Butterfly clearly indicate."
Jan-Emmanuel de Neve
Associate Professor Economics & Strategy
Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

8. © 2016 Butterfly
Great managers make great teams.
Contact info@butterfly.ai for a live demo.