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Junça Silva, A. & Caetano, António (2012). What happens within a working day that might affect employees’ wellbeing and their performance? . 5th International Seminar on Positive Occupational Health Psychology.

A. L. Silva and A. Caetano,  "What happens within a working day that might affect employees’ wellbeing and their performance? ", in 5th Int. Seminar on Positive Occupational Health Psychology, Dublin, 2012

@misc{silva2012_1732208361698,
	author = "Junça Silva, A. and Caetano, António",
	title = "What happens within a working day that might affect employees’ wellbeing and their performance? ",
	year = "2012",
	howpublished = "Ambos (impresso e digital)"
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - What happens within a working day that might affect employees’ wellbeing and their performance? 
T2  - 5th International Seminar on Positive Occupational Health Psychology
AU  - Junça Silva, A.
AU  - Caetano, António
PY  - 2012
CY  - Dublin
AB  - Research on subjective well-being has revealed the existence of diverse work related
micro-events evaluated and experienced as hassles and uplifts. These events occur
frequently throughout the working day and thus have a significant effect on individuals’
well-being and productivity (Nezlek, 2007).
Affective events theory assumes that several events at work have immediate
affective consequences causing emotional reactions, and consequently emotional
fluctuations (Walter & Bruch, 2009). These momentary emotions influence employees´
work related behaviours and attitudes. Furthermore, cognitive evaluation theory
assumes that micro-events stimulate emotional reactions, but these are mediated by an
individual’s interpretation and evaluation of the event (Lazarus, 1999). These
evaluations influence employees’ subsequent decisions regarding work and
organization, such as turnover intentions, absenteeism, and extra-role behaviors (Ilies,
Keeney, & Scott, 2011). Despite their daily frequency at work, there is insufficient
evidence to systematize what the main micro-events are, or to draw specific conclusions
about their effect on an individual’s welfare and performance.
With the aim of contributing to the further development of this issue, this study
intended to identify what are the main micro-daily events at work related to productivity
and well-being levels.
Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. All the participants were
full-time employees with ages ranging between 32 and 58 years old. 73% of the
participants were female. Organizational tenure was 24 years on average (SD=9.87).
Content analysis was used to classify the interviewees’ responses. These responses were
organized into categories by the researcher according to their specific nature. The
created categories were mutually exclusive and, where necessary, subcategories were
developed to capture the richness of the data. This process encourages semantic validity
(Weber, 1985) and allows categories to emerge that can be theoretically justified. After
coding the interviewees´ responses, five categories of positive job-related micro-events
emerged: goal achievement, interpersonal pleasant relationships, favorable working
conditions, pleasant breaks and receiving recognition. Likewise, nine categories of
negative work-related micro-events emerged: unfavorable working conditions, lack of
goal achievement, immoral behavior, interpersonal unpleasant relationships, others’
mistakes/incompetence, public humiliation, perceived disrespect/arrogance, unpleasant
breaks and not receiving recognition.
Results show the existence of several positive and negative micro-daily events at
work arousing emotional reactions. Data show that the most frequent overall positive
event category was “interpersonal pleasant relationships”, while the most frequent
overall negative category was “others’ mistakes/incompetence”. Results also evidence
that some of these micro-events seem to be associated to different levels of subjective
well-being and productivity. As such, the results of this study might be useful to
managers who wish to improve the emotional quality of life of their employees. Clearly,
there is much to be gained, from knowing when and why employees experience positive
and negative events that might affect their daily performance and well-being.

ER  -