Happiness at work

Despite a large body of positive psychological research into the relationship between happiness and productivity, happiness at work has traditionally been seen as a potential by-product of positive outcomes at work, rather than a pathway to business success. During the past two decades, maintaining a level of happiness at work has become more significant and relevant due to the intensification of work caused by economic uncertainty and increase in competition. Nowadays, happiness is viewed by a growing number of scholars and senior executives as one of the major sources of positive outcomes in the workplace. In fact, companies with higher than average employee happiness exhibit better financial performance and customer satisfaction. It is thus beneficial for companies to create and maintain positive work environments and leadership that will contribute to the happiness of their employees. Happiness is not fundamentally rooted in obtaining sensual pleasures and money, but those factors can influence the well-being of an individual at the workplace. However, extensive research has revealed that freedom and autonomy at a workplace have the most effect on the employee's level of happiness, and other important factors are gaining knowledge and the ability to influence the self's working hours. Ryan and Deci offer a definition for happiness in two views: happiness as being hedonic, accompanied with enjoyable feelings and desirable judgements, and happiness as being eudemonic, which involves doing virtuous, moral and meaningful things. Watson et al. claims that the most important approach to explain an individual's experience is in a hedonic tone, which is concerned with the subject's pleasant feelings, satisfying judgments, self-validation and self-actualization. However, some psychologists argue that hedonic happiness is unstable over a long period of time, especially in the absence of eudaimonic well-being. Thus, in order for one to live a happy life one must be concerned with doing virtuous, moral and meaningful things while utilising personal talents and skills. Organisational culture represents the internal work environment created for operating an organisation. It can also represent how employees are treated by their bosses and peers. An effective organisation should have a culture that takes into account employee's happiness and encourages employee satisfaction. Although each individual has unique talents and personal preferences, the behaviors and beliefs of the people in the same organizations show common properties. This, to some extent, helps organisations to create their own cultural properties. Jarow concludes that an employee feels satisfied not through comparisons with other peers, but through his/her own happiness and awareness of being in harmony with their colleagues. He uses a term called 'carrier' to represent lack of happiness, life in constant tension and never-ending struggle for status. There are many reasons that can contribute to happiness at work. However, when individuals are asked with regards to why they work, money is one of the most common answers as it provides people with sustenance, security and privilege. To a large extent, people work to live, and the pecuniary aspect of the work is what sustains the living. Locke, Feren, McCaleb Shaw and Denny argued that no other incentive or motivational technique comes even close to money with respect to its instrumental value. The income-happiness relationship in life can also be applied in organisational psychology. Some studies have found positively significant relationships between salary level and job satisfaction. Some have suggested that income and happiness at work are positively correlated, and the relationship is stronger for individuals with extrinsic value orientations. However, others don't believe that salary, in itself, is a very strong factor in job satisfaction. Hundreds of studies and scores of systematic reviews of incentive studies consistently document the ineffectiveness of external rewards. The question regarding this subject has been recently studied by a group of people, including Judge and his colleagues. Their research shows that the intrinsic relationship between job and salary is complex. In their research, they analysed the combined impact of many existing studies to produce a much larger and statistically powerful analysis. By looking at 86 previous studies, they concluded that while is true to say that money is a driver of employee's happiness, the produced effect is transitory. Judge and his colleagues have reminded us that money may not necessarily make employees happy.