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Author Talks: Are your employees happy at work?

McKinsey & Company

In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey’s Vanessa Burke chats with Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, about Why Workplace Wellbeing Matters: The Science Behind Employee Happiness and Organizational Performance (Harvard Business Review Press, Spring 2025), coauthored with INSEAD assistant professor George Ward. De Neve shares data analysis on the feelings and motivations of millions of job seekers and identifies key drivers that influence their workplace well-being. He explains why workplace well-being varies across companies and provides evidence-based ideas for business leaders who seek to improve productivity, recruitment, and retention.

Acts of kindness can make you happier and healthier, researchers say

CNBC

“People consistently and universally underestimate the kindness of others,” says Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, editor of the report and director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford. But the truth is, it happens more often than people realize.

“In the United States, only 30% of people think the wallet will be returned when lost,” says De Neve. “The reality is about 60% of wallets get returned when lost.”

Are young people today really the saddest generation of the modern era?

Daily Telegraph

One of those studies is the World Happiness Report, produced by a team that includes Prof Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, the director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford. He agrees with Prof Duffy. Across the western world, the happiness benefit that comes with youth “has really disappeared in today’s generation,” he says. The extent of the change is the most obvious in children currently at school, where “that first leg of the U-curve where people report being happiest in their teens is literally gone”. People in their 20s, meanwhile, are “living their midlife crises right now”. Someone my age is about as happy as the average 45-year-old was in the year 2000, Prof De Neve estimates.

Money Can Buy Happiness — This Oxford Philosopher Says Charities Should Pay Attention

Inside Philanthropy

Foundations and nonprofits measure impact and effectiveness in various ways, but happiness per dollar isn’t typically one of the metrics used.

Maybe it should be.

That’s the argument being put forth by Michael Plant, founder and research director of Happier Lives Institute (HLI), a nonprofit that promises to help donors “convert your cash into a happiness multiplier.” It does this by identifying the most cost effective charities — as measured by their ability to increase the happiness and wellbeing of those they reach.

36-year-old happiness researcher shares what it means—and what it takes—to be happy: ‘Don’t just worry about yourself’

CNBC

At just 16, Michael Plant became interested in what people could do to maximize happiness, so he started studying philosophy.

Two decades later, Plant, 36, is a global happiness researcher at the Happier Lives Institute. As the founder and research director of HLI and a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre, which publishes the annual World Happiness Report, Plant knows a lot about what makes people happier.

Happiness, Plant says, is “the experience of feeling good overall. I think it’s that simple.”

Here’s what he does every day to maximize his own happiness and overall wellbeing. Plus, his biggest takeaways from the research he’s conducted about what it means to be happy — and what it takes.

Welcome to the ‘antisocial century’: Are we lonelier now than ever?

El País

It’s not a decision without consequences. For Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, professor of economics and well-being at the University of Oxford and one of the index’s editors, “there is a very direct correlation between loneliness and unhappiness.” Furthermore, self-imposed loneliness, no matter how much it may seem to respond to an individual or generational trend and, therefore, may seem “short-term satisfying,” is a source of emotional imbalance and loss of well-being.

The happiest countries in the world, according to De Neve, continue to be Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden. That is, precisely those where, among many other factors, the loneliness epidemic seems to have progressed the least in recent years.

How companies can improve workplace wellbeing in the Intelligent Age – and why it matters

World Economic Forum

The world of work for many people in 2025 “isn’t necessarily a positive place,” says Jan-Emmanuel De Neve.

Five years after the COVID pandemic increased the focus on mental health and wellbeing at work, “the pendulum is swinging back” to a pre-COVID era, the Oxford Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science believes, with a shift away from the human case for investing in workplace wellbeing.

Why Is Social Connection So Hard for Young Adults?

Greater Good Magazine

Social connectedness is vital to well-being, but members of Gen Z are hesitant about interacting with one another in today’s online and polarized world, says Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki. That disconnection comes at a cost: Young adults increasingly report lower levels of happiness than middle-aged and older adults.

Zaki and Rui Pei, a postdoctoral scholar in his lab, recently coauthored a chapter on the importance of social connection to the mental health of young people in the 2025 World Happiness Report. Zaki is also the author of Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness.

Eating lunch and dinner with others brings an ‘uptick in life satisfaction’—here’s how many meals you should share each week

CNBC

In Senegal, out of 14 lunches and dinners per week, people share 11.7 meals, according to the 2025 World Happiness Report. In Sweden, people share 9.5 meals per week, in the U.S. people share 7.9 meals per week and in Japan, people share 3.7 meals per week.

And it turns out the number of meals you eat with others has an effect on your overall wellbeing. In fact, “there’s an optimal level of social eating,” says Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, editor of the report and director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford.

Trump is creating a selfish, miserable world. Here’s what we can do

The Guardian

But what should you do if you don’t like the way the world is going? Is there anything you can do?

The obvious answer is to rage, doomscroll and hope for the next election. But the obvious answer is no longer an option once we realize the antidote to Trump is to build a happier, higher trust society. Drawing on my dual experience as a moral philosopher and happiness researcher, I’d like to suggest some alternative ways you can fight back.