UDIT researcher Bárbara Castillo Abdul leads "Happiness Management", a study focused on reducing absenteeism and turnover.
Over the last decade, the rise of dynamics in the workplace such as remote work, the automation of processes through Artificial Intelligence and robots or outsourcing, is producing major changes in organisations, in which, every day, more isolated work networks are woven that reduce face-to-face communication between workers and contribute to the loss of their sense of corporate belonging.
In this sense, Bárbara Castillo Abdul, principal researcher of the Research Group on Innovation and Digital Transformation of Communication (GITDCOM) at UDIT, University of Design, Innovation and Technology, has led together with Luis M. Romero-Rodríguez, from the Rey Juan Carlos University, the study entitled 'Happiness Management', published in the prestigious journal BMC Psychology of Springer Nature.
Promoted by UDIT and within the framework of the work carried out by the International University Happiness Network, the project defends a corporate management philosophy that understands productivity and employee well-being as an inseparable whole; In this way, the project developed by both researchers identifies 9 dimensions and 103 variables of internal relationship management and proposes a series of communication strategies that should be implemented in every organisation, with the aim of reinforcing the physical and emotional well-being of workers, sustaining the positive psychology of employees and helping to eliminate possible toxic leadership, preventing crisis situations and promoting teamwork, among others.
Similarly, throughout the project, Castillo Abdul defends the importance of addressing the so-called 'emotional salary' as a solution to the current growth of absenteeism and the lack of trust and commitment to institutions on the part of employees. In this sense, the UDIT researcher insists on giving importance to non-financial benefits to increase employee motivation, such as flexible working hours, family reconciliation or continuous training, among others.
Finally, and with the aim of integrating happiness in internal communication between companies and workers in a practical and not only academic way, throughout the study, the authors have published an application guide of the 'Happiness Management' philosophy, based on three key ideas: the construction of healthy work environments, the formation of a positive personality of employees and the construction of a healthy emotional experience in the working day.
