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 success in business. 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, it is viewed by a growing number of scholars, academics and senior executives as one of the major sources of positive outcomes in the workplace.

Ryan and Deci offer a definition for happiness in two views: happiness as being hedonic accompanied with enjoyable feelings and desirable judgments and they define happiness as being eudemonic, which involves doing virtuous, moral and meaningful things. Schimmack explains that the hedonic alternative is usually found in research on subjective well-being which outlines two related elements: life satisfaction, judgment and affect stability or having a superiority of positive feelings or less negative feelings. Watson et al. claims that the most important approach to explain an individual’s experience, such as the structure of mood and emotions, is in a hedonic tone (pleasantness-unpleasantness). Warr describes the hedonic approach as being concerned with pleasant feelings, satisfying judgments, self-validation and self-actualization. In other words, 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. However, some psychologist argue that hedonic happiness is unstable over a long period of time, especially in the absence of eudaimonic well-being.

While happiness is not fundamentally rooted in obtaining sensual pleasures and money, those factors can influence the well- being of an individual at the workplace. However, extensive research has revealed that freedom at a workplace and autonomy has the most effect on the employee's levels of happiness as well as gaining knowledge and ability to influence one's individual working hours .

Companies with higher than average employee happiness exhibit better financial performance and customer satisfaction. Thus, it is beneficial for companies to create and maintain positive work environments and leadership that will contribute to the happiness of their employees.

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. Therefore, an effective organisation should have a culture that takes into account employee’s happiness and encourages employee satisfaction.Job satisfaction or employee satisfaction is defined as a personal evaluation of conditions present in the job or outcomes that arise as a result of having job. Therefore, job satisfaction has to do with individual’s talents and preferences. 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.

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