**3. Happiness and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)**

Organizational citizenship behavior is a voluntary behavior that is not a part of a person's job description or is paid for, through the organization but it helps in the betterment of the organization and improves the overall work environment [20].

Happiness at work and organizational learning capability has been considered as the drivers of Organizational Citizenship Behavior [21].

It has been suggested that happiness at the workplace is one of the major mediators toward the development of organizational citizenship behavior because it creates a feeling of job satisfaction among the employees. Employee happiness and positive attitude toward their work have been linked with a greater quality of customer service [22].

Happy employees are more likely to produce long-term organizational success and sustain high performance over time and deliver key results. OCB is closely linked with organizational culture, an environment that promotes appreciation and reinforcement has been linked with greater employee retention [23]. Happy employees outperform unhappy employees [24].

### **4. Contributors of happiness at workplace**

The contributors can be categorized into physical factors and psychological factors. Physical factors include earning a high salary, affording a home, a car or nice clothes, job characteristics, and the like.

At the psychological level, factors include learning a skill, getting more exposure, facing a challenge and a sense of expansion of belongingness, organizational pride, authentic relationships, and a sense of meaning are important. Some major factors are discussed as under:

### **4.1 Wage satisfaction and equity**

Wage satisfaction depends not so much on how people earn, but on how much people earn in comparison with others. Taking from the hedonic perspective employees feel gainfully compensated and happy when they witness pay parity [25].

Another strong contributor to happiness at workplace is a sense of equity, where the workers are treated respectfully irrespective of their position or wage drawn. There is fairness in workload distribution and overall job security [26].

## **4.2 Job characteristics**

A meta-analytic study has shown that five climate dimensions of role, job, leader, work group, and organization were consistently related to job satisfaction and other job attitudes [27]. The conceptualization of job characteristics has been expanded to include not just the five motivational factors from Hackman and Oldham, but several additional motivational factors, social factors, and work context factors such as those positively related to happiness at work, and collectively explain more than half of the variance in job satisfaction and 87% of the variance in organizational commitment [28].

### **4.3 Dispositional characteristics**

Dispositional positive affect has been linked to better performance in managerial decision-making and interpersonal tasks [29]. It is also known to predict career success. Happy people earn more, perform superior than their peers, and are more helpful [24]. In general, individuals high on dispositional positive affectivity and core self-evaluations (comprised of internal locus of control, self-esteem, generalized selfefficacy, and emotional stability) tend to be happier at work as well as in other areas of life [30–32].

Happy people are less likely to experience periods of unemployment [33] and more likely to succeed in their job search. They are charming interviewers [34]. Their cheerfulness attracts social support from colleagues, thus. enabling them to perform better.

### **4.4 Connectedness**

Organizations that promote community building; a sense of belongingness in the employees, increase their pride, and help in cultivating social identity [35].

Research in well-being focuses on "social-capital," which is considered very important for the quality of life and higher levels of happiness. It includes making friends at work, as well as through the community.

### **4.5 Autonomy and decision making**

Research has found that job autonomy has a positive impact on employees' mental and physical well-being. It increases employees' intrinsic motivation, engagement, and work performance [36]. It can also reduce mental burnout and emotional exhaustion in workers, and also reduce the desire to change jobs [37]. More importantly, it has long been considered an effective management tool to increase job satisfaction [38].

### **4.6 Engagement at the workplace**

To be fully engaged and happy, three things are needed:


Those who are engaged in their jobs work harder and smarter [40]. Disengaged, unhappy people aren't any fun to work with, don't add much value, and impact our organizations (and our economy) in profoundly negative ways. It's even worse when leaders are disengaged because they infect others with their attitude. Their emotions and mindset impact others' moods and performance tremendously.

### **4.7 Work-life balance**

The ability of employees to deal with the successful combination of work, family responsibilities, and personal life is crucial for both employers and employees. Worklife balance is established when a person has an equal level of priorities in relation to their career growth and the requirements of personal life. A positive work-life balance reduces employee stress, reduces the risk of burnout, and creates greater well-being. This positively affects not only the employee him/herself but also the employer [41]. Organizations/workplaces should look toward promoting a culture where the employees, enjoy democratic freedom, can achieve subjective well-being, and find meaning in their lives, in other words are able to lead a happy and fulfilling life.

### **4.8 Meaningfulness of work**

Meaningful work gives essence to what we do and what brings a sense of fulfillment to our lives [42]. When people have a sense of meaning in their work, they become more committed to the organization. People feel happy when they pursue meaningful activities [43]. If employees perceive the worth and meaning of work, they may be happy to do their work [44, 45]. Meaningful work connects employees with their workplace and experiences a high level of job satisfaction and job security.

## **4.9 Flow in work**

When a person finds his/her flow and performs to his/her full potential, he/she is productively engaged and deeply immersed in an activity that is "difficult," but well adapted to his talents and he/she strives to achieve a meaningful objective [6]. Thomas Carlyle [7] wrote, "Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness". Concentration is so intense that there is no attention left over to think about anything irrelevant. Self-consciousness disappears and the sense of time becomes distorted [45]. It transforms the self. Such personalities are referred as "autotelic personality". They report positive experiences when in flow, more cheerful, stronger, more active, concentrated, creative, and satisfied.

### *4.9.1 Leadership*

A correlation of 0.77 between charismatic leadership and subordinate job satisfaction has been reported [46]. Leader-member exchange is also fairly strongly related to job satisfaction and organizational commitment [47]. Trust in the leader is a strong predictor of satisfaction and commitment [48]. Autonomy support displayed by leaders also appears to be important for follower satisfaction, well-being, and engagement [49, 50]. Recognition can be provided in a number of ways. Leaders have to find out what their employees value most and customize recognition accordingly by showing empathy toward them and providing them with succession planning and different opportunities to get high designation [51].

### *4.9.2 Connectedness*

High-quality connections with others is an important source of happiness and energy for employees [52, 53]. In the book Vital Friends [54], it has been reported that individuals who said they had a best friend at work were seven times more likely to report being engaged in their job.

Thus, salary is not an important thing at the workplace. One may get a good salary but still may not be happy. What really makes employees rank their company well is the type of work they do, how well they are managed, and how well they are recognized for their work (The Career Bliss Team).

Happiness at work and having a positive attitude at the workplace is important for maintaining the efficiency of the organization and meeting organizational goals [11]. Happiness at work refers to a situation at work when human resources feel happy working, are resourceful and achieve the targeted goals, both at the individual and organizational level [55].

Researchers see happiness resulting from a combination of three or four basic factors. Annie McKee sees three components essential for happiness: a meaningful vision of the future, a sense of purpose, and great relationships at work. Others go as high as 10 or 15 ingredients, and a few point to an extensive list of dozens of factors contributing to happiness.
