Abstract
Happiness has been explored from different perspectives—moods, attitudes, emotions, and/or feelings of wellness—and its study has been extended to work experiences. This chapter is framed within the theoretical review of happiness, and happiness at work and its management, by means of recognition and reward programs that are proposed by the theorists to increase happiness, which influence greater company productivity. This chapter shows cases of Colombian and American companies, whose recognition and rewarding practices are aligned with the researcher´s postulates. Among research findings, recognition programs in Colombian companies are more oriented towards a friendly laboral environment and time incentives; whereas American companies focus on incentives based on of money and working from home.
TopTheoretical Framework
The term “Happiness”, its definition and analysis has been a permanent research study since the first years of humanity. Diener (1984) defined happiness as a state of Subjective Well-Being (SWB), where each individual is the best judge of his/her own happiness, based on the assessments of their moods and emotions.
Cañas (2002) mentions that Aristotle described, happiness (Eudamonia) as the common and ultimate goal of a human being, who, in the exercise of his/her intelligence, seeks excellence in his/her daily life. Contrasting with Aristotle, for Epicurus, happiness (Hedonism) is the pursuit of pleasure, not only understood as enjoyment or delight but also as absence of fear, pain and desire (Cañas, 2002).
When people are aware of their potential development, and also involved in activities that lead them to achieve success, they experience both hedonic and eudamonia happiness (Waterman, Schwartz, & Conti, 2008).
Seligman (2004) mentions that the authentic happiness is developed by practicing virtues of character such as kindness, gratitude, optimism, curiosity, playfulness, humor, open-mindedness, and hope. Haybron (2005) defines happiness as:
... being in a high spirits, ebullient, joyful, exhilarant elated, contented, at peace, at ease felling confident and self-assured, feeling 'in the zone', being in an expansive mood, delighted with one's life, or blessed with a sense of fulfillment or well-being (p.290).
According to Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, and Schkade (2005), happiness is a subjective phenomenon, inherent to each person; and the level of happiness refers to the sum of happy or unhappy lived experiences, and their frequency. In regard with Lyubomisky et al., (2005), there are three factors that causally affect happiness over time, or people’s “chronic happiness”: 1) the starting point, which is fixed and stable; 2) the circumstances of life related to cultural, religious geographical conditions, etc.; and 3) the intentional activity that is under each person´s control which involves the scope of decisions they make. The intentional activity can modify our level of happiness and the intentional experiences of joy, learning and relationship, which build up new resources to improve positive emotions and increase wellness and life satisfaction (Cohn, Fredrickson, Brown, Mikels & Conway, 2009).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Happiness: It is a state of subjective well-being that the human being experiences when making a conscious valuation, at a certain moment in his life, where he finds meaning, and experience feeling, full, at peace, confident, safe, proud, optimistic and enchanted with life, as a result of a positive assessment in relation to your health, your spirituality, your family, friends, work and your finances.
Reward: This is the monetary and/or emotional value that the employer offers to the employee in recognition of the outstanding performance related to his individual or collective contribution, his dedication to work, and the impact on the performance of the company.
Happiness at Work: It is a state of subjective well-being that the employee experiences when making a conscious assessment of the realization of his work finds meaning, associated with; the self-autonomy in the performance of their tasks, the degree of complexity and results obtained in the task carried out and the recognition of their bosses, colleagues, and family.