Abstract

‘Quality of Work Life’ has become progressively a popular concept recently, as it reflects the means that an organization can apply to safeguard the inclusive well-being of its employees instead of concentrating just on the job aspects. The ‘Happiness at Workplace’ is a concept that got as well the attention of various researchers and practitioners lately in particular after pandemic of COVID -19, to find out its best practices and importance at various contexts to avoid the stress of employees. In fact, happiness is a leading concern that all people aim to acquire along life, including employees as well as a main driver to succeed at workplace. This chapter discusses happiness at workplace as evaluated between theory and practice, as well its challenges and opportunities, adding to shedding the light on required pillars and its impact on employees’ performance as a reflection of a quality of work life. The chapter proposes as well the organizations’ role to embed employees’ happiness at workplace.

Keywords

Work Performance, Employee Wellbeing, Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, Happy Workplace, Quality of Work Life

Introduction

In the past, it was perceived that motivating employees with higher salaries is a main incentive to acquire and sustain qualified employees. However, lately it was concluded that it is not anymore the dominant factor but it is happiness at workplace. Various studies shed the light on the significance of employees’ happiness to promote organizational success as employees’ happiness can be remarkably related to various main positive organizational outcomes such as positive organizational commitment, better work performance, and lower turnover rate, all of which can reflect for sure a quality of work life. Then, employers are becoming responsible to sustain their employees’ wellbeing and to reflect a quality of work life through embedding a happy workplace.

However, the feeling of happiness is subjective and it is challenging to describe employees’ happiness at workplace along various puzzling factors (Mousa 2021; Thompson 2021; Yu 2021; Soriano 2021; Merdeka 2020; Horváthová 2021; El Bedawy 2022). Accordingly, a key concept of happiness at workplace along psychology has started and received the researchers’ attention, especially it was increased along the pandemic of COVID -19. It is crucial that managers should be more orientated to embed happiness at workplace as they may not recognize in reality its importance for a better quality of work life, as unfortunately there is a scarcity of research on this concept. This chapter aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice to highlight the required pillars and the impact of embedding happiness workplace to reflect a better quality of work life.

Literature Review

The Concept of Quality of Work Life

The quality of work life reflects the degree to which employees are able to satisfy their personal needs at the workplace through creating an environment where employees can cooperate with each other towards achieving organizational goals. In turn, quality of work life is a generic concept that can cover the employees’ feelings about all their work aspects such as financial rewards, benefits, sense of security, work conditions, work culture, work relationships, and work intrinsic value for their lives, all of which may require the change of structural and managerial systems at workplace. The quality of work life considers actually the socio-psychological needs of the employees at workplace and it aims to create a work culture of commitment to ensure employees’ job satisfaction and in turn their higher productivity. Then, the quality of work life reflects the degree to which work in an organization contributes to both the material and psychological wellbeing of its employees through a process of joint decision making, collaborations and building mutual respect between management and employees, to enable its employees at all levels to participate actively and effectively towards achieving organizational goals. Researchers have demonstrated that quality of work life can lead to psychologically and physically healthier employees with positive feelings, all of which can be interrelated as well to creating happiness at workplace. There are various elements of work life quality that reflects as well various requirements for embedding happiness at workplace such suitable wages, growth opportunities, flexibility, benefits, working conditions, workload, self-control, fairness, core values and job design, all of which should be considered to ensure employees’ career satisfaction and their general wellbeing (Bora 2015; Afroz 2017; Klein 2019, Aruldoss 2020; El Bedawy 2022).

The Concept of Happy Workplace

The concept of happiness at workplace gets its roots from the social exchange theory, as it reflects the beneficial mutual interactions that is occurring between managers and their employees to increase the trusting relationships. Happiness is a central emotion that can be reflected through the facial expressions and it can generally contribute to a higher level of wellbeing. Yet, the happiness of employees is different than job satisfaction; work engagement or organizational commitment. As employees may reflect these attitudes because of various reasons, such as high salaries; high job authority; job self-esteem; career advancement, or even flexible working hours. In fact, these factors may still not develop the emotional experience of happiness. Then, it requires various conceptual and practical implications to measure happiness at workplace as it requires its specific construct. Happiness at workplace may require different activities such as social gatherings; birthday celebrations; recognition awards or even after work parties that can motivate the employees’ feelings of happiness. Moreover, there are different forms of workplace fun that can stimulate happiness at workplace such as jokes along sharing food and drinks, as well as the job fun as an outcome of agreeable tasks at workplace (Mousa 2021; Thompson 2021; El Bedawy 2022). There are actually two core concepts that are related to ‘Happiness at Workplace’ which are employees’ wellbeing and commitment that reflect being happy, energetic and calm. Yet, it is also related to the extent to which employees are satisfied with their jobs and health care, all of which can reflect generally as well a better quality of work life.

It has been identified through long-term studies from more than 150 countries; five universal main areas of wellbeing in terms of career, social, financial, health, and community; all of which can affect employees’ wellbeing and their feelings of happiness at workplace and in turn can reflect a better quality of work life. The career reflects how employees like what they do every day as perceiving meaning to be motivated for achieving the work goals. The social reflects how employees having quality relationships as it is crucial for employees’ well-being to reduce stress through good interpersonal relationships. The financial reflects how employees manage their financial survival to acquire the sense of security and stability. The health reflects the employees’ mental and physical health and their energy to perform daily effectively without fatigue through embedding steady physical exercise and a healthy diet. The community reflects the extent of employees’ belonging and their interaction with community through donations or volunteer actions that provide them positive feeling (Horváthová 2021; Bauer 2020; Aruldoss 2020; El Bedawy 2022). The concept of wellbeing and its impact to embed a happiness at workplace remains a main concern of interest along reflecting a better quality of work life. The past studies explored the relationship between wellbeing and performance at workplace based on the hypothesis of happy-productive worker as wellbeing can drive more job satisfaction and organizational commitment as generally happy employees are more active, productive and cooperative. Happy employees are in turn considered the precious stones at workplace as well as it can reflect a better quality of work life. Accordingly, how organizations are guided and managed as well as its leadership can shake employees’ wellbeing at workplace to embed in turn happiness at workplace and to reflect as well a better quality of work life. Moreover, organizational commitment to embed happiness at workplace should be considered for sure for any vision or mission because of its link to employees’ wellbeing and happiness at workplace, through acknowledging employees for their work, ensuring trust with their superiors, adding to establishing various wellbeing programs (Luna-Arocas 2021; Bauer 2020; Aruldoss 2020; El Bedawy 2022).

Happy Workplace in Practice

Embedding happiness at workplace and ensuring the quality of work life are two interrelated concepts. Accordingly, the organizations should measure their employees’ level of happiness, adding to measure its impact on reflecting a quality of work life. In fact, the organizations can improve their employees’ happiness through various means, such as designing better work environment that can secure for them a better level of autonomy, skills development, stress management, work-life balance and social support. For example, the design of ‘Healing Offices’ aims to improve employees’ health and happiness. There are main design concerns that were proposed to embed happiness at workplace such as providing variety of ‘Healthy Food’ to maintain employees’ active learning and to be presented at accessible places. The ‘Physical activity’ through walking pathways or stimulating staircases was proposed to energize employees and to enhance their health and attitude. The presence of ‘Nature’ through adding indoor plants, or designing windows to view the nature was also proposed as it has positive effects on wellbeing and productivity. Relatedness and employees’ feeling of belonging with other employees was proposed as a core psychological drive for their happiness, growth, and wellbeing. Employees’ cohesiveness can be developed through empowerment, adding to sharing both various social activities and core organizational culture. Creating a sustainable interior design at workplace can also support employees’ awareness of sustainable development through monitoring temperatures and ventilation levels as affecting employees’ health, happiness and productivity (Kessler 2020; Bauer 2020; Thompson 2021; El Bedawy 2022). Moreover, various regular activities can be proposed to improve employees’ health and happiness at workplace such as sports events, relaxation exercises, health screening, stress management sessions or medical advices (Horváthová 2021; Thompson 2021; Mousa 2021; El Bedawy 2022). Embedding a core culture of happiness is also crucial to develop happiness at workplace. There are five measures that were proposed to embed a happy culture for employees along reflecting a quality of work life. First is social relationships to connect employees to love working together with trust. Second is to treat employees fairly to avoid their stress and disconnection. Third is empowerment to motivate employees to feel a sense ownership and happiness. Fourth is setting challenging tasks for employees to drive their sense of competencies towards goals, which in turn develop also happiness at workplace. Fifth is inspiring employees to contribute to the society that can support a higher level of satisfaction and happiness (Marks 2015; Bauer 2020; Thompson 2021; El Bedawy 2022).

The Opportunities of a Happy Workplace and its Challenges

Happiness at workplace is correlated to various positive outcomes that aim to reduce turnover rate, work stress or burnout and to increase employees’ satisfaction, commitment, and cohesiveness. Happiness at workplace is recognized too as a key factor to support employees’ productivity and effectiveness as well as reflecting in turn a quality of work life (Bauer 2020; Aruldoss 2020; El Bedawy 2022). Organizations may face sometimes the challenge to maintain qualified employees. That’s why it is crucial to explore the impact and the required pillars of maintaining a ‘Happy-Productive Worker’. From business perspective, happy employees can create also happy customers and more profits for their organizations. In turn, organizations can introduce various benefits such as ping pong tables, lunches, or even video games. On the other hand, unhappy employees can cost their organizations a lot as it can reduce quality, productivity and profitability (Thompson 2021; Mousa 2021; Horváthová 2021; Kessler 2020; Luna-Arocas 2021; El Bedawy 2022). Yet, in general happiness is subjective and the happy/fun workplace activities require managerial support and employees’ interest as it is hard sometimes to predict how fun activities to be perceived and what outcomes may be realized. In practice, the majority of employees at workforce nowadays are younger who have high expectations from their employer because of their educational degrees, competencies and their individual traits. Yet, employees’ perception of fun activities at workplace can be affected by various factors such as limited financial resources or demographic differences. Moreover, managers or employees may sometimes unfortunately resist it as they may consider it as time-consuming (Mousa 2021; Bauer 2020; Aruldoss 2020; El Bedawy 2022).

Conclusion and Recommendations

At the end, a happy employee along a quality of work life will positively contribute to the organizational goal, adding to attract new talented employees and preserve the existing proficiencies. From theory to practice, there is a significant impact of embedding happiness at workplace and reflecting a quality of work life. Actually, there is a strong relationship between the two concepts as ‘Happiness at Workplace’ and ‘Quality of Work Life’ can be considered as two sides of the same coin.

The happy productive workers along a quality of work life are more motivated to contribute for their organization. In turn, management support is required to develop a plan for embedding happiness at workplace, taking into account that outcomes may take longer time to be visible and it is crucial as well to develop a related plan along the mission of ensuring a quality of work life. Employees’ happiness can require a well structure and design for both work environment and culture to foster the happiness of employees to improve organizational performance. Human Resources department should be also active to select the proper employees who have optimistic personalities and it is important as well to know their needs, to get continuously their feedback and to let them always feel the trust and support. Resilience and creativity are also required to overcome the resistance of change that can take various forms such as making fun of the happy program, or not to be engaged in the related activities. It is also important to always maintain employees’ self-fulfillment through their self and professional development. Moreover, it is important to highlight continuously the positive impact of happiness on the welfare of both employees and organizations to reflect as well generally a quality of work life. In addition, it is important to support the work/life balance of the employees, adding to avoid being unappreciated, to sustain in turn the employees who are loyal, confident and more relaxed at workplace. It is crucial then to shed the light on the role that managers should play to create a happy workplace for employees along a quality of work life; as the positive outcomes will for sure exceed expectations.

This chapter has implications for managers to improve employees’ performance and work behavior along setting a happy workplace program as a reflection of a quality of work life through offering flexible or remote working, encouraging breaks, reviewing regularly workloads, leading by example, providing employees opportunities to volunteer for community services, and reconsidering regularly their work life balance. As for the social implications, employees’ happiness along a quality of work life can reduce stress and improve organizational performance that can in turn support the economic growth as well as the stability and welfare of the society. The chapter provides also an avenue for researchers to explore related happiness concerns along various measures of a quality of work life to boost organizational performance.