Are happy workers more productive?
Spoiler: Yes, or at least bankers are.
The happy productive worker theory has been around for years, suggesting that happy workers are are doing their best on their respective workplace. A study conducted in 2014 by Schmitz and colleagues suggested that, at least in the banking sector, intrinsic motivation led to an improvement in cross-selling performances, but are happy bankers more productive? A recent study by Salas-Vallina and colleagues, published in Frontiers and Psychology, tried to shred the light on this, by investigating the relationship between happiness at work and cross selling performances.
Workers and Happiness
For many years now researchers, especially from the social sciences, have been investigating the importance of happiness at work. Despite the fact that the direct relationship between performances and positive attitudes has not been proved (yet), different researchers reported that happy workers perform indeed better. Different mechanism have been proposed to explain this phenomenon. For example, it was hypothesized that positive emotions enhances workers “thought-action repertoires”, therefore increasing their personal resources, while other hypothesized that since engaged people have been proven to be healthier, they can be more dedicated to their work. Additionally, it is possible that happy employees motivates their own colleagues, enhancing the quality their networking and of their performances.
Despite the fact that controversial results have been found for what concerns the effects of performances of happiness at work — Judge et al., for example, found the relationship to be more robust for high-complexity job — , overall happier and more satisfied. Moreover, how can performances be objectively evaluated, given the wide range of possible outcomes for each job?
The present research
In their work, Salas-Vallina and colleagues employed structural equation models to verify whether (a) “Happiness at work directly and positively affects cross-selling performance.”, and (b) “Service-skill use mediates the relationship between happiness at work and cross-selling performance.”
Using questionnaires, they collected data from from than two thousands employees from three different banking institutes. Happiness at work was measures using a scale previously developed by the same authors, while the service-skills use was tested using a scale adapted by two previous works from Vaerembergh and Holmqvist’s (2013) and Wang and Xu’s (2017). Finally, Cross selling was measured using a four item scale developed by Schmitz et al. (2014).
Model Model on the wall…
Who’s the most productive of them all? Accordingly to the results of their model, the researchers concluded that happiness at work do affects cross-selling performances in a positive way, therefore confirming their first hypothesis. Additionally, their results revealed a mediation role of service skills.
Salas-Vallina paper is a great contribution to the literature on happiness and work performances. As the authors pointed out, their research help explaining the black box that, until today, was the happy productive worker model. Moreover, their work highlights the importance of having highly motivated and skilled individuals to serve the customers, in order to increase the companies’ conversion rate, as well as customers’ trustworthiness.
Conclusion for our HR readers: don’t stop at hiring good people, but do your best to make them also feel great!
As always, if you made it so far thank you for reading! If you have any comments or thoughts, please let me know in the comment or get in touch with me here or on twitter at @PillsOfPsy. And if you liked this article gimme a clap and subscribe to the Pills of Psy.
Source
Salas-Vallina, A., Pozo-Hidalgo, M., & Gil-Monte, P. R. (2020). Are happy workers more productive? The mediating role of service skill use. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 456.
