Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16(3), 479; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16030479
The Happy-Productive Worker Model and Beyond: Patterns of Wellbeing and Performance at Work
1
IDOCAL (Institut d’Investigació en Psicologia del RRHH, del Desenvolupament Organitzacional i de la Qualitat de Vida Laboral), Universitat de València & IVIE, Avda. Blasco Ibáñez 21, 46010 Valencia, Spain
2
Research Group for Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology (WOPP), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Dekenstraat 2, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
3
IDOCAL (Institut d’Investigació en Psicologia del RRHH, del Desenvolupament Organitzacional i de la Qualitat de Vida Laboral), Universitat de València, Avda. Blasco Ibáñez 21, 46010 Valencia, Spain
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 27 December 2018 / Revised: 29 January 2019 / Accepted: 3 February 2019 / Published: 6 February 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Using Total Worker Health to Advance Worker Health and Safety)
Abstract
According to the happy-productive worker thesis (HPWT), “happy” workers perform better than “less happy” ones. This study aimed to explore the different patterns of relationships between performance and wellbeing, synergistic (i.e., unhappy-unproductive and happy-productive) and antagonistic (i.e., happy-unproductive and unhappy-productive), taking into account different operationalizations of wellbeing (i.e., hedonic vs. eudaimonic) and performance (i.e., self-rated vs. supervisors’ ratings). It also explored different demographic variables as antecedents of these patterns. We applied two-step cluster analysis to the data of 1647 employees. The results indicate four different patterns—happy-productive, unhappy-unproductive, happy-unproductive, and unhappy-productive—when performance is self-assessed, and three when it is assessed by supervisors. On average, over half of the respondents are unhappy-productive or happy-unproductive. We used multidimensional logistic regression to explain cluster membership based on demographic covariates. This study addresses the limitations of the HPWT by including both the hedonic and eudaimonic aspects of wellbeing and considering different dimensions and sources of evaluation. The “antagonistic” patterns identify employees with profiles not explicitly considered by the HPWT. View Full-TextKeywords:
occupational wellbeing; performance; happy-productive worker
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Peiró, J.M.; Kozusznik, M.W.; Rodríguez-Molina, I.; Tordera, N. The Happy-Productive Worker Model and Beyond: Patterns of Wellbeing and Performance at Work. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16, 479.
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Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health
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