Positive Employee Moods in Groups Can Be Self-Reinforcing

When employees have positive moods and feelings (called positive affect) in the workplace, they tend to be better at helping others, solving-problems, and taking risks. When a group of employees has positive group affect, they tend to have more cooperation, less conflict, less absenteeism, and higher individual well-being than groups with low positive affect. Today’s best managers know that group positive affect can be contagious. Group members share their positive emotions and that leads other employees to feel more positive in return. Unfortunately, the positive mood can get much higher than it should, and that can hurt performance, so today’s best managers help employees keep a healthy level of positive affect.

Source: Walter, F., & Bruch, H. 2008. The positive group affect spiral: A dynamic model of the emergence of positive affective similarity in work groups. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 29, 239-261.

Not Meeting Employee Expectations May Not Be As Bad For Organizations As Was Thought

Managers know that unmet employee expectations on the job can negatively affect: organizational commitment, job performance, absenteeism, motivation, job satisfaction, and turnover. However, today’s best managers know that the influence of unmet employee expectations on job attitudes and behaviors may be less powerful than was once thought. Instead, actual experiences may play a more important role than meeting or not meeting employees’ expectations. Although meeting employee expectations is still important, today’s best managers can worry less about the negative results that doing so might have on employees’ behaviors and attitudes on the job.

Source: Brown, S. A., Venkatesh, V., Kuruzovich, J., Massey, A. P. 2008. Expectation confirmation: An examination of three competing models. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 105, 52-66.

Develop Employee Psychological Capital To Improve Employee Attitudes and Performance

Today’s best managers know that employees have psychological capital when they: 1) have confidence that they can succeed at challenging tasks, 2) are optimistic about being successful now and in the future, 3) work hard to reach goals, but change their goals if necessary, and 4) are resilient and can bounce back from adversity. Having psychological capital can lead to higher levels of performance, job satisfaction, and commitment, and lower levels of absenteeism for employees. Managers used to believe that people were just born with a certain level of psychological capital. However, today’s best managers know that employees can develop and improve their psychological capital.

Source: Luthans, F., Avey, J. B., & Patera, J. L. 2008. Experimental analysis of a web-based training intervention to develop positive psychological capital. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 7, 209-221.