Four Texas Cities Ranked Happiest for Young Professionals

North Texas company makes workplace happiness part of business

A new survey lists the happiest cities for young professionals and three Texas cities make the Top 20.

CareerBliss.com put together the list and said it re-enforced the notion that California has some of the happiest workers with Los Angeles, San Jose and Sunnyvale taking the top three spots.

San Antonio came in at No. 10, Irving ranked 13 on the list, Plano ranked 18 and Houston came in at No. 20.

The research was based on 38,000 employee reviews from 2011 to 2012. "Young professionals" were employees with less than 10 years' full-time experience.

The employees, according to CareerBliss.com, "were asked to rate 10 key factors that affect workplace happiness including, work-life balance, compensation, company culture, overall work environment, company reputation, relationships with managers and co-workers, opportunities for growth, job resources, daily tasks, and job autonomy."

CareerBliss Top 20 Happiest U.S. Cities for Young Professionals 2012

RankCityBliss Score
1.Los Angeles, CA3.952
2.San Jose, CA3.951
3.Sunnyvale, CA3.951
4.Indianapolis, IN3.942
5.San Diego, CA3.884
6.Irvine, CA3.866
7.Atlanta, GA3.857
8.Boston, MA3.845
9.San Francisco, CA3.833
10.San Antonio, TX3.828
11.Las Vegas, NV3.820
12.Seattle, WA3.784
13.Irving, TX3.783
14.Philadelphia, PA3.779
15.Orlando, FL3.763
16.Pittsburgh, PA3.743
17.New York, NY3.716
18.Plano, TX3.705
19.Miami, FL3.679
20.Houston, TX3.679

Meanwhile the BerylHealth call center in Bedford focuses on happiness.

BerylHealth has been named to the top 100 "Best Places to Work in Healthcare," and one of the "Best Companies to Work for in Texas" as well as one of "the best companies to work for in America."

Workers say they take happiness at work seriously. As the official Queen of Fun and Laughter, Lara Morrow's duties include keeping things light at work.

Paul Spiegelman says, as the boss, he spends about half his time at the office working on employee happiness.

"The way to do that is to talk to your employees and see what's important to them. How would they like to have fun? Is there something you'd like to do at work? Is it as simple of a dress up day or a pot luck? Would they like to go out after work together? The ideas should all come from them," said Spiegleman.

Spiegleman wrote a book about workplace happiness called "Why Is Everyone Smiling?"

He says happy employees means better work, which means more profit, which means more happiness.

"The leader has to believe and realize, most importantly, there's a connection between culture and profit. And not only is it the right thing to do, it's good for business," said Spiegleman.

Employees say it's the culture, not the money that keeps them coming back day after day.

"It keeps it interesting. It breaks up the monotony," said employee Jordan Ford.

NBC 5's Keaton Fox contributed to this report.

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