Government bodies should enhance their work environment to promote happiness and leverage employee potential to help improve skills, performance and efficiency, while happiness and positivity should be the measure of success in all such efforts, said Ohood bint Khalfan Al Roumi, Minister of State for Happiness and Director-General of the Prime Minister's Office, here on Wednesday.

This is in sync with the vision of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan who stresses citizens’ happiness as a top priority of the government, the Minister said during a human resources forum on happiness at workplaces, organised by the Federal Government.

"The government takes a keen interest in creating favourable circumstances for a positive and happy society where a positive environment is a vital tool to achieve excellence. Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum believes that government institutions must change their culture and policies to keep pace with the efforts to promote happiness of clients and employees," Minister Al Roumi said.

The real measure of success of any government initiative, work or service is the positivity and sustainable happiness in society where "happiness is the collective output of all work at government institutions that employ their strategies, policies and initiatives to achieve this target," she added.

"Every government employee is an ambassador of happiness and positivity in his society," Al Roumi stressed, noting that CEOs of happiness are being trained now at government departments to further enhance the effort and promote "happiness as a culture and a daily practice".

Recently, the United Arab Emirates, UAE, expanded its Chief Happiness and Positivity Programme to the private sector after its success in the government sector.

The initiative for the private sector aims to enhance positive interaction with the public sector.

"The UAE was founded on the principles of happiness and positive interaction between the public and the private sectors. This was a key factor in transforming the UAE into a magnet for creative minds, entrepreneurs, innovators and investors looking for a better life, as well as multi-national enterprises that set up shop in the country," Al Roumi said while launching the programme in late October.