10 Facts That Prove You Cannot Be ‘Too Emotional’ At Work

Emotions have been pushed out of organisations for too long and especially for women.

UK jobs website Totaljobs published a new study looking into how UK workers manage their emotions in a professional environment. The survey, which included 2,000 workers and 250 managers in the UK, found that more than half the workforce feels they’re unable to actually express their true feelings in the workplace.

There’s an abundance of research about how a happy workforce is better for individuals personally and professionally in terms of having a more productive, profitable, and engaged workforce. Yet, it still seems that emotions are pushed out of business and only the ‘rational’ version of you is allowed through the office doors.

So, let’s look at the 10 facts that prove you cannot be ‘too emotional’ at work to help empower you to create a business case for happiness at your own work and start reaping the rewards.

Too Emotional?

Let’s get one thing clear straight away – neuroscientists tell us that scientifically there is actually no such thing as being ‘too emotional’. So, the next time someone tells you that you are too emotional, perhaps ask them for the science behind their comment.

Learning And Memory

The 2017 paper, “The Influences of Emotion on Learning and Memory” has proven that emotions allow us to recall events in a more meaningful way. If there was a magic spell that you could buy that would improve perception, attention, learning, memory, reasoning, and problem solving, you would. So, let’s start using it to our advantage.

Relationships

We have found that having a strong and positive relationship with your colleagues is one of the most important factors for your happiness and work. And these kinds of relationships are built on being able to connect with them on a level that’s deeper than a catch up on what you did at the weekend, but the ability to share emotions in a safe and open environment with one another.

Successful Leader

This also means that if you are the type of colleague or leader who is able to open up to their colleagues and listen when they do, you are much more likely to be a successful leader who is able to get the most out of their team.

Be Yourself

This goes for leadership too. If your company or leadership team don’t create a workplace culture where you feel able to be yourself and talk about the good and the bad, it makes for a not-so-happy workforce which damages wellbeing, profits, productivity and basically everything else!

Peaks And Troughs

Research is showing us that human emotions have natural peaks and troughs, and this is completely healthy and normal. No one is going to be happy all of the time. Particularly at times of stress or change, there is going to be some negative emotion. This is all just part of being human and banning emotions will create an unhappy workforce.

Making You Human

Remember that no one would ever think being ‘too happy’ could be construed as being too emotional. It tends to be the emotions that require leadership or colleagues to address or acknowledge how you are feeling that are considered to be too much. Your emotions are not too much, they make you human and are natural.

Performance

Our global study into workplace happiness has shown that employee happiness had a direct impact on performance. So, an organisation that hasn’t got a culture of empathy is directly and negatively impacting the performance of their employees and therefore of the company as a whole.

Profits

As if you needed more reasons to believe that emotions should be part of a positive workplace culture, but a happy employee also improves your profits. Over a 28-year period, companies in the 100 best companies to work for in the US, had stock returns that beat their peers by 2.3-3.8% per year.

Verbal Recognition

When leaders have regular open lines of communication with their employees and provide updates around updates around company news and personal performance, it ensures everyone feels like a vital part of the business. Verbal recognition is one of the leading happiness factors that isn’t being capitalised on by many employers. The data highlights that there is an overwhelming feeling that management is not attentive enough. Staff feel like they go above and beyond but don’t receive the credit.

What Is The Future Of Our Emotions?

I’m Head of People at The Happiness Index, and I was asked about the future of happiness for co-Founder and Head of Global Happiness Matt Phelan’s book, Freedom to be Happy: The business case for happiness. The question shouldn’t be, “‘What is the future of happiness?’ but ‘What is the future of emotions?’

We’re all human and humans aren’t only happy, they have a range of different emotions, including positive and more negative ones.

What we need to do is incorporate all those emotions into how we work with each other and make it easier and more acceptable for people to let those around them know when they’re not as happy as they could be.

How Are You?

How many times have you answered the question “How are you?” with “I’m fine!” without even really thinking about it? We believe that we should all be working towards a culture where people can be open and honest about how they’re feeling in any particular moment, with their colleagues and peers, but also with management and leadership within their place of work.

We have observed that today’s emotions are tomorrow’s performance. Our technology goal at The Happiness Index is to enable companies to achieve emotional intelligence at scale. Hopefully we can help more people to understand that labelling and treating people as if they are ‘too emotional’ is only damaging people on personal and professional levels, as well as hampering the businesses they are within.

Bio

Head of People at The Happiness Index – Gemma Shambler is responsible for the happiness and wellbeing of the businesses most valuable assets – it’s people! Her passion for developing and growing people led her into the weird & wonderful world of HR, and she hasn’t looked back since. Gemma is an advocate for flexible working and being a working Mum herself, has the first-hand experience of its benefits.