Management Perspectives

In challenging times, organisations considered happiness at work as ‘the holy grail’ of organisational success. But it was not a new concept even back then; the famous Greek philosopher Aristotle stated that happiness is every human’s goal, and it was a matter of living a good, virtuous life.

The belief that happy workers are more productive leads to a win-win situation for both individuals and organisations. They demonstrate that workplace happiness is vital for employees, and organisations consider it composed of work engagement, career satisfaction, and subjective well-being.

The nature of work and work design is ever-changing. Early management theories considered workers as cogs in the wheels of production. Traditionally, the top-down approach meant that organisations had to put effort into nurturing the workplace environment, thus boosting desirable outcomes. Modern theories view the worker as an organisation’s critical component, i.e., an asset rather than a liability. They hold the more open view that workers have a proactive role in influencing their environments. One such self-driven proactive behaviour is job crafting. It allows an employee to shape and modify a job’s task, relational, and cognitive boundaries.

In recent times, the COVID-19 pandemic has favourably resulted in organisations taking notice of employee ell-being. Managers try to understand employee work attitudes and behaviours to retain talent and improve performance. How happiness impacts employees and organisations can be identified as follows: First, there are personal impacts that are directly tied to each individual’s life, such as income, a higher life expectancy and health, increased career self-awareness, no burnout, and a feeling of solidarity. The second is workplace behaviours (i.e., how people behave at work), such as better teamwork, reduced turnover, increased task, and contextual performance. Finally, group of impacts e.g., organisational outcomes.

As a leader in an organisation, there are some principles that a leader should practice when dealing with employees, such as being realistic, fair, considerate, and empathic. According to Chiumento (2006), organisational leadership factors such as cooperation in management, structure and work system, decision-making power, leadership credibility, and employer recognition can also © Shutterstock.com contribute to a stressful employee.

Being practical, fair, caring, and empathic are just a few of the values that a leader in an organisation should uphold when interacting with his/her team members. Organisational leadership variables such as management cooperation, structure and work system, decision-making authority, leadership credibility, and employer recognition can also influence how stressful it is to work as an employee.

Being open and vulnerable can help leaders and their teams remove their masks and reveal their true selves. It also encourages everyone to become more self-aware of their strengths and areas they could adjust, which in turn can lay the groundwork for new learnings by setting goals—but not just any goals.