Guest editorial: Exploring happiness in the workplace as an essential theme for developing managers post-pandemic

Abstract

As recovery from the global pandemic takes shape, there are signs of a desire to rethink how our organisations manage, whether notions of building back better or fairer and more sustainable approaches resonate with the UN's long-established Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this sense, happiness and well-being are at the heart of the UN's 2030 agenda to achieve the SDGs. It challenges organisations to find new ways of managing for sustainable and competitive advantage through the happiness of their employees at work (Ravina-Ripoll et al., 2021). This issue takes on particular relevance during the pandemic, as at this time, an essential academic and professional debate arises on the need to implement management models that revolve around the happiness at work of their human capital (Elías Zambrano et al., 2021). Organisational psychology provides a wealth of information for corporate governance to cultivate a positive atmosphere within companies. Undoubtedly, this is one of the roadmaps for companies to encourage innovation, intrapreneurship or disruptive thinking among their employees (Galván-Vela et al., 2021). It shows, among other things, that there is still a long way to go in academic research on happiness at work in the post-pandemic era (Salas-Vallina and Alegre, 2021). A systemic review of the literature published in the last decades of the 21st century shows that an emerging line within this particular social discipline is the scientific studies that revolve around the attractive organisational culture of happiness management (Ravina-Ripoll et al., 2023). This philosophy aims to comprehensively promote companies' economic and sustainable performance, especially in complex and uncertain environments (Mu et al., 2023). It requires generating an organisational climate that enables workers to overcome the barriers they encounter in the day-to-day performance of their professional activity and thus to achieve their work goals with enthusiasm, happiness and social responsibility (Hatami et al., 2023; Hernández-García de Velazco et al., 2020). In this way, top management can reduce psychological events that negatively affect employees' health and quality of life, such as pressure, stress and anxiety. Therefore, happiness management offers an excellent opportunity for companies to carry out a strategic direction that harmonises business benefits and the happiness of their internal customers under the criteria of inclusive growth, social marketing and sustainable development (Ravina-Ripoll et al., 2022). Consequently, happiness management can play an essential role in developing human resources policies that accelerate internal customers' labour productivity and operational efficiency through the holistic pursuit of their happiness at work and neuro leadership (Ruiz-Rodríguez et al., 2023). In this sense, the editors of this special issue would like to contribute to an academic debate that shows how the concept of happiness management can create the conditions for happy, productive and purposeful workplaces. From this perspective, the articles that make up the corpus of this special issue make it clear that current organisational management models need to be mindful that happiness at work is a driver of prosperity, sustainability and competitiveness. The following general description of each article makes up this attractive special issue.