Fostering employee happiness: Personal growth programs as foundation for employment performance and productivity in organizations

• Main Author: Paredes, Miguel Paolo L.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2019
• Subjects: Career development; Employees—Training of; Human Resources Management; Performance Management
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/10942
• Institution: De La Salle University

More than half of the world's population (58%) spend one-third of their adult life engaged at work. A person's work has a profound effect on well-being ("Global Strategy on Occupational Health for All...”.1994). With most of our lives revolving around work, it is easy to see that the concept of an individual's happiness extends to the workplace. The paper seeks to explore the influence of an authentically-implemented Personal Growth Program (PGP) much like that implemented by Google, Nike and Apple into an organization's structure and policy. Through the proposal of a preliminary theory, it is hoped that further inroads are created towards uncovering and supporting the value personal growth programs may have on organizations, and more importantly, its implications in increasing the happiness of employees. This paper takes on this subject through a Humanistic approach, wherein the value is created only when stakeholder interests (including employees) are met. This paper focuses on Personal Growth Programs (PGP) as a specific strategy of which organizations may adapt to further enhance the happiness of their employees. Personal Development Program (PDP) as defined by the Quality Assurance Agency, as “a structured and supported process undertaken by an individual or organization to reflect on their own learning, performance and/or achievement and to plan for their personal, educational and career development”. (QAA 2001 QAA 2001 Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education) PGP in this paper is defined very much the same except that these programs are implemented by the organization as part of its operational structure. Can the implementation of a Personal Growth Program and its inclusion in an organization's policy increase the happiness of its employees? Does employee happiness in the workplace positively relate to their productivity? Does the authenticity or lack of it, of organizational policies in providing PGP have implications as conditions for the effectiveness of the program in achieving objectives by increasing happiness?