Happiness for Project Managers: Framework and empirical analysis

In the past decade, organisations and governments have become increasingly interested in measuring how people feel, such as 'Happy Planet Index', 'the Well-Being index' and 'Gross National Happiness'. Indeed, practitioners and researchers have found that happiness, subjective well-being, is a strong predictor of various work outcomes including job performance, employee retention, workplace accidents, absenteeism, customer engagement, and profitability. To improve the levels of happiness, models were developed to examine antecedents of happiness; however, very few have focused on studying project managers (PMs), who play important roles in driving project success in the sector like construction. This study addresses this limitation by investigating the relationships among organisational factors, personal resources, and PM levels of happiness. Self-reported data was collected from 227 project management professionals, and was analysed using structural equation modelling. The results suggested a seven-factor PMs’ happiness model. In particular, the mediating role of personal growth, positive work relationships, and meaningful work in the relationship between work environment and happiness at work was supported. In addition, work environment and meaningful work were found to be strong predictors of PM's happiness.