A researcher from Kansas State University says employers should be concerned with the well-being of their employees because it could be the underlying factor to success.

Thomas Wright, professor of management at K-State and the Jon Wefald Leadership Chair in Business Administration, found when employees have high job satisfaction and levels of psychological well-being, they perform better and are less likely to leave their job. This makes happiness important for obtaining a larger, more positive outcome.

"The benefits of a psychologically well work force are quite consequential to employers, especially so in our highly troubled economic environment," Wright said. "Simply put, psychologically well employees are better performers. Since higher employee performance is inextricably tied to an organization's bottom line, employee well-being can play a key role in establishing a competitive advantage."

Happiness is a wide word, and it's subjective to the individual. However, a person's well-being usually involves positive emotions, such as joy and interest. It is usually absent of negative emotions, such as apathy and sadness, Wright added.

If employers focus too much on the negative side of an employee in excessive amounts, it could be harmful. In performance evaluations, it is counterproductive to focus the concentration to much on the negatives such as what an employee failed to do, he said. Positive emotions, when implemented properly, allows workers to find meaning in their work and job satisfaction.

Studies have show that being psychologically well also benefits the individual, Wright said. Employees with higher well-being tend to be better decision makers, demonstrate advanced interpersonal behaviors and usually receive higher pay, he said. His recent research also indicates that psychologically well individuals usually demonstrate better cardiovascular health.

Wright said while happiness is a responsibility to ourselves, we must also be supportive and friendly to our coworkers, who rely on a positive environment. In addition, employee well-being affects the organization overall.

Wright said psychologically well employees are consistently exhibiting higher job performance. This findings are very relevant. A correlation of 0.30 between well-being and performance indicates that roughly 10 percent of the variance in job performance is associated with differences in well-being, while a correlation of 0.50 points to a substantial 25 percent of the variance.

In some of Wright's academic and consulting work, he has used a form of utility analysis to determine the level of actual savings tied to employee well-being. In a sample of management personnel, for example, he found that being psychologically distressed could cost the organization roughly $75 a week per person in lost productivity, based on a $65,000 annual salary. With 10 employees that translates to $750 per week in performance variance; for 100 employees the numbers are $7,500 per week or $390,000 per year.

When employees are unhappy, they are more likely to quit their job. Wright said employee turnover could be extremely costly for an organization losing lots of its employees. In one study, Wright found that the possibility of turnover was 0.57 times smaller for any one-unit increase in well-being. As with job performance, the knowledge of an employee's well-being can be highly useful in helping human resource personnel determine cost-effective employee retention strategies, he said.

Well-being has shown to be stable over time, though it can be influenced by situational circumstances through psychological-based interventions, Wright said. Methods to improve happiness and well-being include assisting workers so they fit their jobs more closely. Also, providing social support to help reduce the negative impact of stressful jobs and teaching optimism to emphasize positive thought patterns may be helpful.

Wright said one controversial approach to improving well-being in the workplace is by seeking and hiring employees from the start who have high levels of well-being.

Wright's findings have appeared in several publications, including the Journal of Management, Organizational Dynamics, the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, the Journal of Applied Psychology and the Journal of Organizational Behavior.