Work Happiness in the Sustainability of Organizations

Introduction

During the period of the Incas in our region, one of the saddest times of the year began with winter because it was the time when animals and children died because of the cold. This time was contrasted with the arrival of the harvest season to which they were prepared in advance from the month of August. Before starting the sowing, they dedicated themselves to cleaning their houses, burning what did not serve them, they sought to reconcile with each other, they sought that stability and harmony with their environment and with themselves, it was what they called “Kusikuy”, which in Quechua means joy, happiness (Wissler, 2009).

The pursuit of happiness has been one of the main tasks of humanity since the beginning (Stearns, 2012). The current world in which we are living, hit by a pandemic, has made that the material aspects were based on our reality, they take a second priority to issues such as health and emotional stability. Global institutions such as the United Nations require “a new economic paradigm based on happiness and well-being” (Ricard, 2012). Thus, reports have emerged that claim to measure Happiness such as the World Happiness Report and the Happy Planet Index.

In these rankings, Peru obtained the 65th position out of 156 countries, with a perception of average happiness, 5.7 (Helliwell, et al., 2019, p. 27; Jeffrey, et al., 2016, p. 4). At the macro level, Peruvians consider themselves happy, they are rated with a score of 16 on a scale from 0 to 20 (Arellano, 2019, p. 17).

Regarding their workplace, the figures are quite clear: on average, more than 50% are not happy in their workplace and 74% of Peruvians would change their job for one that makes them happier, thus affecting productivity and employment organizational performance (RPP, 2018; Gestión, 2017).

For the management of companies, one of the greatest challenges is to improve the productivity of MSEs in Peru, as in many countries in the Latin American region. The great lack of this type of organization is its sustainability, many of them start with great enthusiasm but then fail to maintain their growth over time. Therefore, one way to give microentrepreneurs tools for sustainability is to approach the improvement of their performance from different fronts. In short, it will be interesting to evaluate if happiness is related to that performance of the workers.

Various researchers have taken happiness as a subject of study, in Peru Alarcón's research developed a scale that measures happiness in terms of how satisfied one is with his life and if he sees it in a positive and joyful way and with a feeling of accomplishment (Alarcón, 2006, p. 104).

For his part, the Peruvian psychologist Jorge Yamamoto and his team coincide with Alarcón in some of the dimensions that he manifests, such as personal fulfillment, which Yamamoto mentions calling it goals and perception of achievement; however, unlike Alarcón, it finds other dimensions such as cultural values ​​and resources that allow achieving the goals of the person (Yamamoto and Feijoo, 2007, pp. 221-224; Yamamoto, Feijoo and Lazarte, 2008, p. 20).

The limitation of these investigations is their way of understanding happiness only from a perspective of satisfaction with life. In Peru, also with a focus on satisfaction, is the research of Arellano (2019, p. 84) who, through an exploratory study, finds Peruvian happiness as that which is manifested in economic well-being, well-being of society, having recognition and good relationships, housing progress, well-being with oneself, family support, and flow (understood as playful entertainment, it does not specify that it is related to work).

On happiness at work, we find the studies of Paschoal and Tamayo (2008, p. 11), who developed the EBET scale, “scale of well-being at work”, which measures happiness through positive affects, negative affects, and performance at work; this scale is later validated in several countries (Paschoal, 2010, p. 1055; Demo and Paschoal, 2016, p. 35).