 Does flexible work make R&D employees happier?Marit Rebane, Heili Hein and Aaro Hazak No 23, TUT Economic Research Series from Department of Finance and Economics, Tallinn University of Technology Abstract: Striving for happiness is a universal human goal, and increased happiness is regarded as a key objective in modern scientific literature on socio-economic development. Yet, the connection between happiness and the organisation of work has not received much scrutiny. In our study on Estonian creative R&D employees, we explore the effects of flexible work schedules, the option of teleworking, and other aspects of work arrangements on employee happiness. We uncover that the option to work out of the office substantially increases happiness, and this effect is further augmented by flexible working time arrangements. We also consider the inner circadian cycles of employees and find that evening type individuals (“owls†) feel significantly less joy from their daily lives than their morning type colleagues (“larks†). This is potentially due to genetic factors, but could also be partially caused by a mismatch between the innate time preferences among owls and social as well as employer expectations. Overall, the results of our study suggest that flexible working arrangements could significantly increase the happiness and well-being of creative R&D employees. Date: 2017-08-31 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ttu:tuteco:23 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in TUT Economic Research Series from Department of Finance and Economics, Tallinn University of Technology Contact information at EDIRC. |
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