New wearables aren't just tracking your health — they're also tracking your happiness

As a growing body of research assesses the link between workplace happiness and performance, organizations have started taking these findings to the next level, according to Nextgov.

Companies like John Deere have implemented feedback systems to measure their employees' wellbeing, according to a Harvard Business Review article. These biweekly evaluations, which John Deere managers dubbed a motivation metric or happiness metric, calculate employees' contributions and feelings about work.

But the Japanese company Hitachi High Technologies has taken the connection between happiness and performance one step further. Hitachi employees wear tracking sensors in their badges, according to Ubergizmo. These sensors, which track workers' movements 50 times per second, document when employees' sit, type and stand, as well as who they talk to and for how long. Through the data it collects, Hitachi uses an algorithm to track workers' overall happiness levels.

Although the trend is fascinating, wellbeing-measuring wearables are still up-and-coming. A recent Springbuk Health Analytics study found while 54 percent of employers hope to purchase wearables in the next year, only 7 percent utilize data from sensors to evaluate their employees.

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