How happy are project managers in their jobs

Studies have shown that happier employees are more productive and lead to higher profitability and company value. Happiness and workplace happiness refers to the experience of frequent positive affect, low negative affect, and overall satisfaction related to workplace. While workplace happiness has been recognized widely in other industries, it is rarely measured in the engineering project organizations. Little is known about the level of workplace happiness of project management professionals as compared to other professionals.  Does gender, experience, position, or any personality characteristic affect workplace happiness? Traditional wisdom has focused extensively on promotion, monetary incentive, or anything useful in recognizing someone positively. It is of great interest to see how effective this approach is.The study aims to explore the level and nature of workplace happiness for project managers as a profession and then understand the motivating factors behind their workplace happiness. The paper reports the findings based on the Happiness@Work survey developed by the new economic foundation but tailored for the project management workplace. More than 400 project management professionals from Project Management Institute Silver Spring chapter were contacted for this study. Data was coded for non-parametric statistical analysis. The results show insignificant effects of experience, gender, age, and employment status on project manager’s workplace happiness. Task diversity and level of project management maturity at organizational level do make an impact on workplace happiness. We also found that a compensation, fair pay, was not a driver of workplace happiness suggesting that much of management’s focus on extrinsic rewards may not enhance workplace happiness and directly improve project outcomes.