Inspired to perform: A multilevel investigation of antecedents and consequences of thriving at work

                                                         

By Harnain Arora

    FPM II, Organisational Behaviour Area

                          

Want to grow at work? Want to feel energised? Want to remain healthy? Want to be a good performer? ALL AT THE SAME TIME, IS IT POSSIBLE? Well, with the increasing complexity at work, there are many question-marks that organisations and employees really worry about and guess what, there have already been constant efforts put to understand the problems and find solutions! But to make the picture look more bright, digging on similar lines a research was conducted by some researchers named Walumbwa, Muchiri, Misati, Wu and Meiliani in 2018 exploring how certain qualities of individuals and organisations can help make professional life interesting and beneficial for all the parties involved. Particularly they looked at ‘thriving’ at work, which simply put is the extent to which employees feel energised & have the urge to learn, affects individual level outcomes like employee well being and organisational outcomes like work performance. In a nutshell, the study was conducted with the aim to find out the what leads to thriving at work (energy and urge to grow) and what does this thriving lead to.

      The study took place in Indonesia with the participants belonging to public services. A total of 275 employees were surveyed in the study coming from different departments like forestry, tourism, agriculture, public transport, road construction, fisheries etc. Interestingly, almost the same number of men and women participated in the study. The information taken from participants was at the individual level, however when the researchers needed some information about the group level they used some statistics on every individual's responses to get an aggregate. Only for the information on group performance, the employees' supervisors were surveyed. Why weren't the employees asked about their group performance? Well who would say our group doesn't perform well!

     Applying complex analysis, the study comes out with many interesting findings important for a healthy work life, one of them is the relation between ‘Core- Self evaluations and thriving at work’. In simple terms the authors are trying to say that the way you see yourself and the way you think about yourself is connected to whether you will feel the enthusiasm to work. They suggest that the more you see yourself positively and think optimistically about your worth, they more you will feel in control and confident about yourself that will fill you with the hope and urge to grow and develop.

    As personal experiences for many of us suggest that if somebody cares for us and shows faith in us, we tend to feel more capable and positive about ourselves, isn't it? Parallel to this, the study also talks about how ‘servant leadership positively affects group thriving’, basically meaning that if your leader (or supervisor) takes care of your needs, encourages you to explore, gives you productive feedback and more, this will motivate you to seek challenges and find creative solutions to them. As usually leaders exist for many people at a time, this thriving will occur at the group level.

     Many people get absent or/and leave the workplace for various reasons that put off employees like stress, low motivation, depression, illness etc, that many of us may even be able to relate to or may have experienced experienced at some point of time or the other. Such absenteeism leads organisations to bear approximately a loss of about $84 billion annually. The amount is huge!! Studying this issue, the researchers claim that if an employee feels energised and have the urge to develop oneself (thriving) s/he would experience more positive health and well-being. However, there would be a linking factor between the two, i.e of ‘affective commitment’, which is nothing but how emotionally attached an employee is to his/her organisation. So, may be if you have the urge to grow and can see yourself growing and learning, it might lead you to feel good about your organisation and this liking and attachment may increase your chances of being healthy!

    
     Not neglecting the organisations’ interests, the researchers also suggest that collective thriving will positively influence collective affective commitment, which also has the capacity to positively influence group outcomes. When all the members of the group feel the vigour and see themselves developing, there is a feeling of gratefulness and ‘paying back’ to the organisation, hence all the members in a group feel the sense of emotional attachment and this emotional bond motivates them to perform well.

      The research has key insights for a large number of people as take-aways. For the organisations, the highlight is that they should develop their work culture and practices such that they create leaders that are sensitive to their follower’s needs and growth, instilling in them the confidence of taking risks and learn. This confidence not only improves the performance of the individuals but also helps them fight the causes of stress in workplace. For the employees, it is important to see yourself in a positive light, so that the resulting feelings give you the courage to fight unpleasant feelings and conditions like burnout, low morale, illness etc. Broadening the scope beyond the context of workplaces, it may be that treating people well and appreciating yourself could be some of the effective mantras for a good life!

Reference:

Walumbwa, F. O., Muchiri, M. K., Misati, E., Wu, C., & Meiliani, M. (2018). Inspired to perform: A multilevel investigation of antecedents and consequences of thriving at work. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 39(3), 249-261.