Happiness@work – Positive Psychology based tools to improve the happiness and wellbeing of managers and employees in micro businesses Erasmus Project

Project Title

Happiness@work – Positive Psychology based tools to improve the happiness and wellbeing of managers and employees in micro businesses

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship); Health and wellbeing

Project Summary

Who doesn’t dream of waking up on a Monday excited to go to work, knowing that we spend on average half our waking hours at work? Happy people are not only more grateful, develop a strong sense of purpose and form authentic, cooperative connections with others. They also have a positive impact on the organisation they work for. Happiness leads to a 12% spike in productivity, while unhappy workers proved 10% less productive: “Human happiness has large and positive causal effects on productivity (A. Oswald 2014). Positive emotions appear to invigorate human beings.” Studies also show that happier employees are more engaged, more motivated, innovative, give better customer service, play more effective roles in teams, make better leaders and enjoy higher retention rates.

Managers and employees of micro businesses (< 50 employees) strongly identify with the organization they work for. As a result, their sense of happiness is highly dependent on what is happening at work. What does happiness mean? We selected a definition as presented by M. Seligman (2001): “Happiness is a cognitive evaluation that individual’s life is moving in the right direction, individual’s constant search for meaning and purpose in life, and frequent positive emotions.” We chose this definition because Seligman is a pioneer in the methodology of Positive Psychology. This branch of psychology complements the traditional focus on pathology with the study of human strengths and virtues and the factors that contribute to a full and meaningful life. Positive psychology can be used to increase happiness and wellbeing within the workforce and will therefore be at the forefront of all Happiness@Work project activities. The main aim of the project is to increase happiness and satisfaction in the workplace by bringing the positive psychology methodology into practice in micro businesses (MB), building a support system for both MB managers and employees. This will be realised by bringing M. Seligman’s 5 ingredients of wellbeing into practice and translate them into a context that micro business managers and their employees can relate to. The 5 ingredients of wellbeing are known as PERMA: Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Accomplishment. These elements can help people reach a life of fulfilment, happiness and meaning. Partners, widely spread across the EU so as to increase the reach and impact of Happiness@Work, will develop an innovative dual training methodology combining online (Happiness@Work Online Learning Platform) and face-to-face (Happiness Circles™) learning that is fully job transcendent and can therefore be applied in any type of business sector. The programme will be tested over 2 pilots with micro business managers and employees being directly trained across the partnership Results: - Happiness@Work Positive Psychology Framework (IO1): presenting similarities and differences in the approach and understanding of happiness in the workplace in each partner country and clarifying target groups’ specific needs within the realm of the 5 elements of Positive Psychology - Happiness@Work Self-Assessment Questionnaires (IO2): development of 2 fully-fletched self-assessment questionnaires that will analyse micro business Managers’ and Employees’ happiness in the workplace, based on Seligman’s 5 elements of Positive Psychology - Happiness Circles™ for Managers and Employees, including 2 piloting phases (IO3): unique personal development training, using blended action learning techniques to support managers and employees in increasing their own and other’s happiness at work (in the case of managers) through soft skills building and strengths-based coaching in order to increase their self-efficacy. - Happiness@Work Online Learning Platform (IO4): an innovative learning platform where participants will be presented with daily doses of short videos and/or texts, the content of which will be linked with their individualised learning path. Each partner country will finally organise 2 multiplier events to ensure wider members of the target groups are given opportunities to participate and feedback into the project and benefit from project results. Happiness@Work will hereby achieve threefold impact that will remain deeply embedded in the workplace atmosphere of participating MB and beyond: 1. MB managers will have an increased awareness that happiness is not only an important topic for their employees, but also for themselves, and that their own happiness has an impact on the functioning and wellbeing of their employees 2. MB managers will have an increased knowledge on how to utilise postive psychology techniques and how to bring them into practice to increase their own happiness, support their employees and integrate the Happiness@Work philosophy in their leadership 3. MB employees will have an increased awareness that they have an impact on their own happiness and how they can improve this in their working and personal lives

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 261900 Eur

Project Coordinator

Obelisk NV & Country: BE

Project Partners

• CONSORZIO MATERAHUB INDUSTRIE CULTURALI E CREATIVE SCARL
• INOVA CONSULTANCY LTD
• Edit Value Braga – Apoio à Gestão Lda
• Globalnet sp. z o.o.