Like many workers, Ivelisse Rivera, a physician at Community Health Center, Middletown, Conn., feels stressed-out by mounting workloads. And she didn’t expect to get much help during her employer’s annual staff meeting last November — just the usual speeches on medical issues.

 

Instead, she got a big dose of something new: Happiness coaching. Keynote speaker Shawn Achor — a former Harvard University researcher and former co-teacher of one of the university’s most popular courses, Positive Psychology — extolled 90 listening employees to shake off dark moods at work by practicing such happiness-inducing techniques as meditation or expressing gratitude.

 

To her surprise, Dr. Rivera says, she drove home filled with thoughts about cheering up; ‘if I assume a negative attitude and complain all the time, whoever is working with me is going to feel the same way.’

Happiness coaching is seeping into the workplace. A growing number of employers, including UBS, American Express, KPMG and the law firm Goodwin Procter, have hired trainers who draw on psychological research, ancient religious traditions or both to inspire workers to take a more positive attitude — or at least a neutral one. Happiness-at-work coaching is the theme of a crop of new business books and a growing number of MBA-school courses.