Week 7 Post

Hello to all!

We are coming to a close with this course, and I truly am so appreciative of all the valuable information I have gained. This week it was great to combine and reevaluate all the work I have done to see the growth I have had.
The two new sources that I picked to add to my annotated bibliography were located via the DOAJ database. I felt that the journal articles I had found in prior assignments were extremely beneficial to me and unlike Ebooks provided studies with specific examples of the information being provided. I decided to keep my focus on the key terms I used to make my search and also highlight the validity of the author or the Universities of which they were attending. I researched the authors name, but since these were not books it was far more likely I would find better information when searching the publisher or the school that supported them. The authority of both articles were verified using this strategy and then the second factor I emphasized on was the purpose. Both articles showed me that they were really trying to dip deep into the roots of why employees have a certain mood in the workplace and what the factors are that lead to this. My research question was focusing on how to establish a healthy and happy work environment for employees and I feel like the results I found provided me with answers coming from every angle. I gained knowledge on the physical, emotional, moral, and professional factors that are required in accomplishing this. For those of you that are interested in reviewing my research, I feel that any of you looking to feel healthier in your place of work would truly benefit. If you have a problem with the morals of upper management or you just want to feel more comfortable in that cheap office chair, the sources I have provided below can be useful to you. Thank you all so much for taking your time to read my post! Below is my research question, citations, and annotations. :)

What are the most effective steps to creating a happy and healthy employee environment?

Amalia, M., & Antonakas, N. (2009) Previous Employment and Job Satisfaction Conditions: The Case of Regional Administration. 1148.1 (2009): 927-931. DOI Number: 10.1063/1.3225471 Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-com

The peer reviewed journal I have selected this week uses tables and flowcharts to track the correlation between an employee’s years with the company and their satisfaction of working there. The outcomes of their studies had proven that those with lesser work experience as a whole experienced a lower level of employee satisfaction. Aside from the abstract of this article, the context of this article included a majority of the key words I had used in my search. My opinion had always led me to believe that the longer you work for a company the more repetitive it became, which wasn’t necessarily a positive in my books, but this article provided me with factual numbers proving the opposite and opened another door of research for me. After reading this it pushed me to ask more questions on whether the factors required in achieving employee satisfaction differentiate based on the number of years someone has been with the company or if it is a generalized process.

Conley, C. (2007).  Peak- How great companies get their mojo From Maslow. Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-com

The author of this EBook, Chip Conley, ran a company that faced an extreme hurdle with his own company resulting in him finding aide in the teachings of a well-known psychologist. He explains, through theories of Abraham Maslow, that to provide employees with an ideal working environment you must acknowledge and inspire the motivations that drive them. The “Authority” of this book was something that I found to be easily validated because Chip Conley has written various popular novels on personal and professional growth, of which my personal fan favorite is Emotional Equations. Along with the author, Chip Conley, the publishing company Jossey-Bass strives to publish books that guide readers in achieving their educational and personal goals. This book will be a great asset to research my topic because it highlights the important factors of internal business development that most companies tend to look over and I would like to look into stories of other successful companies that first had to jump a major hurdle or experience a downfall before rising to the top.

Finna, H. & Forgacs, T. (2010). Enhancement of human performance with developing ergonomic workplace environment and providing work-life balance. Perspectives of Innovations, Economics and Business, Vol.5, Issue2, pp.59-61. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15208/pieb.2010.50.

This article went into details on the literal factors required to ensure a proper work environment and the level of comfort necessary starting from what kind of chair they sit in to the temperature of the office. They explained how the lighting of a building can have either a negative or positive affect on the employee—based on the color, level, high, intensity, etc. This article is probably the most beneficial one I have come across so far especially because it provides literal solutions to the question I am asking and even taking into account different office types and styles. I think this has given me a different angle to approach my topic by allowing me to tackle this question from all sides and to understand that in order to have a happy employee you must focus on more than just the management and training aspects of a company. I was able to validate the authority of this article by researching the alternate work of both authors, which proved to help in establishing confidence in this information.

Fleischman, G., Godkin, L., Kidwell, R., & Valentine, S. (2011). Corporate ethical values, group creativity, job satisfaction and turnover intention: The impact of work context on work response. Journal of Business Ethics, 98(3), 353-372. Doi:10.1007/s10551-010-0554-6 Retrieved from https://search-ebscohost-com

This article focuses on how the establishment of a work group effects the results that it produces and the outcome of the employee satisfaction. The results provided from their studies are then linked to suggest steps that management can take to ensure that the environment exuberates the proper characteristics to achieve this. It was very well written and the studies executed in a very organized manner making this article extremely resourceful for me. I think I have attained a better understanding on the connection between work ethic placed on employees and the outcomes of it and I am able to now pinpoint which exact factors in a corporate environment I feel are most dire to create a happy employee. Is there a certain industry that has mastered this process perfectly or is this something that is company specific? If so, I would like to know more about how that process originated for them or if it was a moralistic behavior that their company was created around.

Kocjan, Z.G. (2015). Disentangling the overlap between employee engagement and passion. 1332-0742 Retrieved from https://doaj.org

            This article focused on the differences between an employee being engaged and one being passionate and how that correlates to their psychological state in the workplace. The more passion within the employee the more positive behavior is exuberated to those around them. I looked up this University which the author of this article attended while writing this information and saw that the University also held high regards to a positive atmosphere. Along with confirming the authority of this information it helped me gained an understanding on the roots that this paper was written. It helped me understand the psychological standpoint that is best for employees to be in and sparked my interest to learn more about how management can help keep their workers moods on the more positive side.  

Makhbul, Z.  (2013). Workplace environment towards emotional health. Vol. 3, No. 1 ISSN: 2222-6990 Retrieved from https://doaj.org

            This article discusses the fundamentals of an ergonomically designed workplace and how it is a vital aspect of ensuring that employees are happy and safe in their professional environment. It also explains the relation of how outside health problems will affect ones opinion of their current job position. The paper is broken down into specific parts of this—starting from the indoor air quality ranging all the way to the acoustics of the building. This helped me validate the accuracy of the information provided to me because the points and examples provided are very detail oriented. You are definitely able to tell that the authors truly care about helping companies maintain healthy and happy employees making the purpose of this article clear. This is the second article I found that helped me learn about the physical requirements needed to satisfy an employee and it pushes me to research more into why employees don’t push for these factors when seeking for a job.