Comments on: Happy Employees Redux

By: John

John — Wed, 30 May 2007 01:39:06 +0000

I agree with Irene in the condition of having two employees with the same skill and different level of happiness. Besides, people who are happy with their work do their work and don’t have any reason to be bored.

By: Wally Bock

Wally Bock — Sun, 27 May 2007 19:36:15 +0000

The professor said, “both satisfaction and performance are the result of employee personality characteristics, such as self-esteem, emotional stability, extroversion and conscientiousness”

This is hooey! If performance were and satisfaction were based on personality, the same people would be happy or productive all the time. That simply ain’t so.

My reading of the literature on this is that there is a multi-factored relationship between productivity and satisfaction. Each affects the other and is affected by factors such as the supervisor (big affect), working conditions, intrisic rewards and more.

By: Bob

Bob — Sat, 26 May 2007 13:33:39 +0000

I don’t think it is as simple as extro vs. intro. If so, it would be easy to hire only one or the other.

There is life happiness and job happiness. While interrelated I suggest they are entirely separate.

Simply stated, if you like what you do for a living (assuming it adds value to the firm) you will tend to be more satisfied. If you like what you do and work for a company that values what you do and provides systems to recognize that value you may become extrememly satisfied during working hours.

If you hate what you do and your life is a mess it doesn’t matter whether you are intro or extro or where you work. You will me one miserable SOB.

By: Ivan

Ivan — Fri, 25 May 2007 18:08:02 +0000

I’m not sure if I agree on the topic of personality. I definitely think that some people are extroverted vs introverted, and some people tend to act more with their feelings than their thoughts. Also, “decisiveness” is definitely variant from person to person. What’s your thoughts on this?

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 24 May 2007 18:07:57 +0000

What does this mean? “I don’t think modern neuroscience supports the idea of a stable personality very well. ”

We are unstable? Or are you saying the definition of a stable person is not clear?