Reinaldo Sousa Santos was the speaker at the open class on December 6th that took place in the ISVOUGA auditorium.
The session, titled Being happy at work: People and people management, began with an explanation of the concept of happiness and addressed the importance of, in a work context, aligning results and expectations. For Reinaldo Sousa Santos “expectations have changed a lot” and within an organization “they are not the same for everyone”. For Reinaldo Sousa Santos “expectations have changed a lot” and within an organization “they are not the same for everyone”. “People’s needs are in permanent adjustment” said the speaker, for whom “authentic happiness combines emotion, involvement and meaning, having a meaningful life”, since “being well at work implies having pleasure and fulfillment” .
In front of an audience of more than five dozen students and professionals from the Entre Douro e Vouga region, this specialist in dealing with people, spoke for 2 hours about happiness, well-being, trust, respect, leadership, empathy, equity, resilience and positive environment.
The university professor also recalled that: “Success is a consequence of happiness. It is not success that brings happiness. It doesn’t come from things to people.” And the organizational climate, but above all, recognition are aspects valued by any member of a team. Using metaphors, Reinaldo Sousa Santos explained that people are not like a tree “that you give four blows to make it fall”, people, and especially teams, “are like armies”, therefore, they will show resistance and will take defensive actions, depending on how they are treated.
Reinaldo Sousa Santos also warned of the danger of obsessing over talent retention, which must be based on well-being, the existence of work with purpose, autonomy and relationship experience. Because, in this professional’s opinion: “worse than people who resign and leave are people who resign and stay”, warning of the detrimental effect that a lack of motivation has on the functioning and productivity of organizations.
The theme of the open class combines the speaker’s vast experience with the knowledge acquired as part of his PhD in Business Sciences, where he developed a thesis on the topic of well-being at work. “Good decisions involve organization and performance with people and their well-being and if these two dimensions do not find a balance, we do not have a stable relationship”.
This open class was promoted within the scope of the Public Relations curricular unit, of the degree in Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations and involved students and teachers from this course in preparing the initiative, which also attracted the interest of students of Business Management, Accounting and even some professionals from companies in the district of Aveiro.
