Subjective Well-Being at the Workplace as a Social Action: Opportunities for Management and Self-Management

Abstract

Theoretical model of system determination of subjective well-being at work at the levels of society culture, organizational culture, personality, and psychophysiological level is presented. Subjective well-being at work is considered as a necessary condition for adult working man to experience happiness. The results of research of subjective well-being of personnel of Russian companies (N=425) are presented. It is shown that subjective well-being can be considered as a social action of interactive nature. The key role of organizational culture was revealed. The following indicators of subjective well-being are considered: conformity of individual values of organizational development with the vector of organizational culture, the level of organizational stress, self-assessment of fatigue and health. The role of subjective well-being in the conditions of organizational changes as an emotional regulator of personnel’s acceptance of innovations is shown. The effects of subjective well-being include personal involvement in work activities, age-related self-esteem, and personal activity in working with information. The analysis of characteristics of modern economy, which allow employees of companies to acquire meanings of acceptance of innovations in corporate training, is given. The managerial practices contributing to the construction of a culture of resilience are shown.

1. Introduction

At all times, the main vector of human efforts in life is aimed at achieving and maintaining happiness as the highest experience of positive emotions. The state of happiness is experienced by a person in different ways depending on his personal characteristics and life circumstances: from getting a piece of bread that allowed him to stay alive to a complex set of characteristics: positive self-esteem, sense of control over what is happening, openness to the world and experience, optimism, positive social connections, a sense of meaning, and purpose in life [1, 2]. Due to the fact that happiness has such an incomparable value in human life, the phenomenon of happiness has been actively studied from the time of ancient philosophy to the present day, and the potential of these studies is enormous. Questions concerning the nature of happiness, its types, its connection with morality, personal development, efficiency, and self-efficacy have continued to be topical for centuries. A relatively independent topic is the integrative nature of happiness, which depends on the satisfaction a person receives in different types of activities. Thus, even Aristotle noted that different goods are necessary for human happiness; only a combination of different goods forms the basis of human happiness. Until recent decades, most people were engaged in routine, often simple, and hard physical labor, and the problem of happiness in labor did not seem relevant. The results of labor could provide the worker and his family with the benefits that could determine their experience of happiness and, consequently, awaken a person to work more, to develop his competences for a greater reward for labor. In the first third of the twentieth century, industrialization increased the requirements for personal and professional growth of the worker, his creativity aimed at improving the increasingly complex professional activity. Labor becomes for workers a relatively independent sphere of self-realization. All the necessary components of experience of happiness can be found in it: from positive self-esteem to life meanings and goals. A. Adler pointed out three major spheres of human life where a person can achieve success in order to achieve happiness. These are love, friendship, and work. In recent years, company management and researchers in the field of organizational development and human resource psychology have increasingly focused on well-being in the workplace. The use of the concept of well-being rather than happiness is understandable due to the fact that work is only a part of life and only working people, although it is certainly possible to meet people who are happy because they are happy in their work activities. Efforts are made to improve the quality of working life, and often quite costly programs are introduced. Management’s efforts to improve the quality of life of employees have not only a humanitarian component, but also an economic one. Business does not just need an employee who cannot yet be replaced by a machine, but a person who voluntarily and independently, based mostly on intrinsic motivation, builds up and realizes his intellectual, creative, and social potential for the benefit of the company’s development in external and internal turbulent conditions. This is facilitated by a number of changes taking place in the economy in connection with its globalization and the onset of a new technological mode of Industry 4.0.

Globalization in economic development has led to the fact that, since the works of D. Robb, G. Hamel, L. Valikangas, management considers the problem of companies’ efficiency in the conceptual apparatus of viability, which consists of their successful development in the long term under the conditions of manifold turbulence. A viable organization is able to maintain competitiveness with an advantage over time. It achieves this by delivering superior performance, innovating effectively, and adapting to rapid and turbulent changes in markets and technology. Company viability has a multilevel organization, from financial, technological, organizational, and environmental to the psychological resilience of employees [3]. One of the key conditions of enterprise viability is psychological resilience of personnel, which is the ability to maintain its functions without the development of distress in the changing and uncertain conditions of internal and external environment [4, 5].

There are many reasons for the development of distress in employees of modern companies. The perception of threats to a company’s viability is increasingly expanding. These include traditional (financial, natural, geopolitical, legal, and physical security risks) and new risks: cyberattacks, innovation, communication channel problems, intellectual property protection, dramatic shifts in consumer tastes, activation of nontraditional competitors, and more recently, pandemic and escalating political tensions. The advent of the new technological mode of Industry 4.0 leads to the formation of new threats and challenges to personnel, including high levels of unemployment, because along with the robotization and digitalization of the economy, a sharp reduction of jobs and much less creation of new ones are possible [6]. Companies are facing the need to introduce innovative production and management technologies, and this introduction is happening at a rate that often exceeds the adaptive capabilities of the employee. There is a growing need for personnel who not only have specific functional professional competences, but who are psychologically ready for technological and managerial innovations, stress-resistant, involved, developing together with the company, taking personal responsibility for continuous qualification improvement in the company, and for self-education [6, 7, 8]. Characteristics of in-demand personnel are steadily associated with a young chronological age, so the existing age stereotypes are serious factors in increasing the level of anxiety, worry, and stress among a significant part of employees, reducing their well-being in the workplace [9, 10, 11].

There is a growing awareness of the lack of focus on threats. Technological and managerial innovations, on which Industry 4.0 is based, are not a threat, although they create many risks, cause tensions, increase turbulence in the external and internal environment of companies. They are a necessary condition for increasing productivity, competitiveness, and consequently, the viability of the company. The threat is a company’s lagging behind in the global innovation process.

The management of companies is far from always able to effectively solve the problem of the company’s transition to a sustainable innovative format of development. This is confirmed by the data on Russia’s position in the Global Innovation Index. It ranks 45th in the quality of human capital, within 29th place, and only 56th in innovation-related performance [12]. These data show that there are serious managerial barriers that prevent the strengths of companies’ personnel from manifesting themselves. Russian enterprises on the average lag behind their foreign competitors in terms of labor productivity by 2–3 times [13]. Labor productivity can be increased only at the expense of growth of innovativeness of economy. Psychological resilience of the personnel in the conditions of implementation of innovations becomes especially significant factor of organizational development.

In Russia, in comparison with the countries traditionally developing in a market economy, there is a set of socio-psychological factors that increase the stressogenic nature of the ongoing innovative transformations, reducing the well-being of the personnel. A significant part of Russians is still far from fully adapting to the change in the paradigm of socioeconomic development from command-administrative to market-innovative and remains committed to the socialist principles of state protectionism. The pension reform created new contradictions between the state and the population, employers and employees, between different generations of workers. The demand for continuous professional development and personal responsibility for the development of one’s professional competence is at odds with the habit of waiting for an order from above regarding the need to train new competencies in the traditions of the administrative-command model of the economy, which persists in managerial practices to the present day.

Understanding the importance of human well-being in the workplace has brought to life a new trend in human resource management—the creation of a well-being culture [14]. In the Manifesto of the World Economic Forum in Davos, it is directly noted that A company treats its people with dignity and respect. It honors diversity and strives for continuous improvements in working conditions and employee well-being [15].

The pandemic has led to a dramatic increase in company bankruptcies across businesses, increasing competition at the level of using innovative technology and attracting the best staff. The British Standards Institute (BSI) 2021 report notes that in 2020, for the first time since 2017, the viability of companies declined. There has been a realization of the need for a greater focus on people. The report indicates that prioritizing the health, safety, and well-being of employees, customers, and communities has had a positive impact on restoring organizational resilience [16].

At the same time, F. Herzberg [17] showed the specificity of supporting (hygienic) and motivating factors in labor activity. If we understand well-being as quality of working life, then it can only be a hygienic factor if it does not incorporate motivating influences. On the other hand, many people do not wish to complicate labor and expand responsibilities, which are characteristic of innovation and which, according to F. Herzberg, are the key motivating factors. Significant in understanding is the absence of expressed stress or its acceptable level for work and preservation of health. In conditions of external and internal turbulence, stress is considered to be the main factor reducing the level of psychological resilience of personnel, destroying their ability to cope with the challenges of the new technological order. The most important criterion of culture well-being is the subjective well-being (SW) of the personnel. The notion of subjective is significant in the sense that it emphasizes the possibilities of individual emotional differences in the perception and experience of the organizational and managerial contexts in which the subject of labor is located. At present, we are talking about SW in a highly turbulent environment, that is, in stressogenic conditions that are, at first glance, not compatible with SW. Resistance to innovation may weaken only if the staff for one reason or another will want to work in such conditions, and this, in turn, means that employees will experience positive feelings up to and including pleasure, rather than irritation and even fear, anticipating the next innovations.

The problem of maintaining the viability of companies and personnel is extremely relevant: in the United States and Europe, the first standards for company viability have already been created. Approaches to the prevention and reduction of stress in the workplace are being developed, including standards of stress management to its acceptable level, principles of intervention, and training of individual viability [18, 19, 20, 21].

Personnel security is certainly important from the point of view of humanization of management and quality of working life in general, but in the context of the problem of viability of the company is not an end in itself, but only a factor that contributes to the psychological resilience of staff in the context of innovation. The following research questions become relevant:

1. What are the organizational and psychological determinants of staff subjective well-being?

2. Is subjective well-being achievable in the turbulent environment of innovation?

3. What are the possibilities and limitations of managing staff subjective well-being as a factor in staff adoption of innovations?

2. Subjective staff well-being as a social action

2.1 Subjective well-being as an emotional regulator of labor behavior and personnel acceptance of innovations

The phenomenon of SW is not new in psychology in general and in labor psychology in particular. It has been studied in two main directions: hedonistic and eudemonic [22]. Depending on the driving forces behind the emergence and development of SW, the authors have proposed a set of SW indicators. A multidimensional model of SW, including affective, cognitive, social, professional, and psychosomatic dimensions, has been proposed [23]. Many specific socio-psychological conditions and factors of subjective well-being/disadvantage at work have been revealed: from an employee’s life satisfaction and his cognitive and motivational characteristics to the vulnerability level of a manager’s narcissism [24, 25, 26]. Companies develop programs that include professional training opportunities, satisfaction of the employee’s out-of-work needs, and appreciation programs, including through digital platforms [27].

The issue of activity, however, is a key one. At the same time, the problem of formation of values, which are predictors of behavior, as a rule, management does not pay enough attention, and in science the psychological mechanisms of their formation are not studied enough to successfully solve the actual managerial problems. This is especially true of adults with pre-labor attitudes and, most importantly, their practices of attaining happiness, which are of the hedonistic rather than eudemonic type. The importance of work to the individual makes it clear that, in seeking to ensure the emotional well-being of staff, managers can contribute to or place a barrier to human happiness, depending on the specifics of the individual’s experiences in the workplace. Modern theories of personality help to understand the mechanisms of the emergence of one type of happiness or another. A. Maslow’s theory shows the specificity of deficit and higher needs [28]. And recognizing the correctness of this theory in the sense that ontogenesis is the formation of needs in a certain sequence, it is also known that, for one reason or another, the formation of the personality of a considerable number of people is limited to the satisfaction of deficit needs. And only some of them have stable dominant higher needs associated with the search for and giving personal meaning to their lives and its individual components. Outstanding Russian researchers of personality and activity, A.N. Leontiev and B.F. Lomov, have shown that in adult people, the basis of personality is a wealth of connections with the outside world and oneself, represented in an individual hierarchy of motives. The system-forming activity factor “motive-goal” determines a person’s behavior on the basis of choosing among competing motives [29, 30].

The hierarchical model of motivational organization as the basis of personality allows us to understand the specifics of the experience of happiness and how the concept of subjective well-being can be correlated with happiness. As Aristotle believed, happiness is the possession of that which is most valuable. And in accordance with the model of the hierarchical organization of the motivational sphere, a person experiences happiness when he has achieved (or received due to various circumstances) the satisfaction of that need, which corresponds to the highest motive in his personal motivational hierarchy. But the satisfaction of less significant personal needs also matters. It is no coincidence that there is an expression: to experience complete happiness. Satisfaction of needs, the motives of which are located at lower levels in the motivational hierarchy, gives the feeling of happiness, which is stronger, the more significant the motive is. Therefore, it is more appropriate to correlate SW with a specific activity or sphere of human activity, personally significant, but still not the most basic. Thus, knowing the hierarchical dynamic, but at the same time rather stable structure of personality, it is possible to predict which activity will make a greater contribution to the experience of happiness. Certainly, the satisfaction of basic deficit needs provides a sense of well-being and an understanding of the need to maintain it, but with a minimization of intellectual and physical effort. The dominant higher needs are not necessarily related to self-realization and the search for meaning in work activities. But this is just the case when a person can experience happiness, not only SW in labor, because creative labor opens up maximum opportunities for self-fulfillment compared with most other areas of human efforts. Nevertheless, a large proportion of workers are committed not only to labor, but also to other values, such as family, healthy living, charity, care for the environment, and in these cases the dominant higher needs satisfied in several highly significant areas will create an integrated experience of happiness, which, apparently, is true happiness, at least according to Aristotle. It can be reasonably assumed that an employee’s behavioral activity will be the higher, the more highly situated the motives are. This is another reason to engage in giving labor and, if it is a matter of adopting innovations, higher meanings. A.N. Leontiev called values the higher motives with a sense-making function.

In recent years, there has been strong evidence that the human capital of a company is personnel with a predominance of positive work-related emotions combined with work activation. Such employees are more engaged, demonstrating performance and quality of work. Negative work-related effects with low rather than high activation prove to be more closely associated with negative work behavior [31].

Whether SW in work activity provides readiness to accept innovations is a question with an ambiguous answer, although there is evidence that the attitude to achieve happiness, provided by the feeling of SW, has its effects in human social relations, health, life, and work satisfaction [32].

Managers in the management of employees should consider on what basis it is expedient to create SW for effective solution of labor tasks, because without such understanding the personnel can stay in a state of SW, for example, in the system of good interpersonal relations of clan culture, avoiding to show initiative or participating in innovative activity. In a bureaucratic UC, SW can be achieved and maintained when a staff member follows all the prescriptions and regulations without going beyond them.

The key basis of SW as applied to labor activity in turbulent conditions should be the desire of the employee for progressive technological and organizational changes against the background of positive emotions connected with labor. SW is an important emotional subjective regulator of labor activity as a whole and personnel’s acceptance of innovations, in particular, because administrative management and even rational self-regulation, based on understanding by a labor subject of necessity of innovations as a condition of viability of the company in the modern turbulent world, do not solve the problem of resistance to their introduction.

Under the conditions of innovations, introduction an employee, who has not acquired stable higher needs and corresponding values due to the peculiarities of upbringing and previous experience, needs to find meaning in life as a whole, its separate spheres, including work, is important in itself, as it opens to a person the goals and means of their achievement. Understanding of meaning is based on the trichotomy of purpose, coherence, and significance. Coherence means a sense of comprehensibility and one’s life making sense. Purpose means a sense of core goals, aims, and direction in life. Significance is about a sense of life’s inherent value and having a life worth living [33]. Giving meaning increases the level of experiencing positive emotions [34]. Positive emotions experienced in the workplace and their intensity create a sense of being able to regulate affective experiences as a form of relationship control [35].

However, meanings are very different and not all of them contribute to the development of a person as a personality and to the improvement of his labor competence and efficiency. In the context of Industry 4.0, which is based on innovation, the employee needs to go through the transition from one class of meanings to other classes. The first class of meanings, which are the most natural and understandable, are typical of the known and definite world. These meanings refer to individual and social identity, simplify, and structure the world. We must move on to the second and third classes of meanings. The second class includes the meanings of the abnormal, chaotic, illogical, innovative—the unknowable world. It includes those meanings that arise to challenge the integrity of our current known or deterministic world. And to the third class belong the meanings of the connection of the known and the unknown, the meanings that arise in the course of voluntary exploratory behavior. These are existential meanings inherent in individual experience.

Independent transition to the second-grade meanings is possible, but not guaranteed. Training, supervision, and the work of a mentor are necessary here. The transition to the third class of meanings requires the predominance of internal motivation over external motivation. Getting pleasure from such movement fixes the acquired meanings that form the basis of innovative values and determine the active position of an employee against the background of the sense of subjective well-being strengthened not so much by the approval of management as by the realization of the correctness of the choice made, personal renewal, and readiness for further development.

The tasks of SW management make relevant not only studies of the content and structural organization of this phenomenon, but also the implementation of a functional approach, including the development of a model of its determination. T. Parsons’ theory of social action [36] may serve as a basis for such a model. This is explained by the fact that SW is an interactive process, in which both external and internal factors play their role.

The subject of labor activity is influenced by its objective factors, which include the conditions of labor activity, which include managerial conditions that manifest themselves in the features of OC and managerial practices implemented by company management.

Since SW is presented to the employee emotionally and has a pronounced positive emotional coloring, he naturally does not remain passive, but in one way or another with a certain level of activity and success aspires to that position in the system of objective physical circumstances and social relations, the totality of which gives him this feeling of SW as opposed to disadvantage.

The employee is able to comprehend his position in the organization, interpret events affecting his position in it and emotional states, look for solutions to arising problems, respond to management requirements, respond to its requirements and expectations as he understands them, improve social relations, develop the necessary competences. He tries to change his position in the organizational conditions, adjusting or resisting the organizational circumstances, can build strategies of behavior, leading, in his opinion, to the improvement of SW in the company. To a large extent, he is guided by subjective experiences of well-being/disadvantage. Depending on his values and motivation, he can to a certain extent reconcile with objective indicators of the quality of working life in the form of remuneration for work, not quite comfortable conditions of working activity. Instability of SW phenomenon in time is clear: organizational conditions and corporate requirements change, family circumstances of an employee change, as a result of which his labor motivation and labor involvement change. SW is a complex multilevel phenomenon with a complex external and internal determination: from the culture of society and OC to job satisfaction or emotional exhaustion and psychosomatic tension [23].

2.2 Theoretical model of systemic determination of personnel subjective well-being

2.2.1 Personnel security as a social action

The application of T. Parsons’ fundamental theory of social action opens up the possibility of the most complete research of system-related determinants of SW in labor activity at the levels of society’s culture, the culture of the social context in which one or another phenomenon considered as social action is observed, at the level of personality of people in whose actions the phenomenon appears, and finally, at the level of organism in the fullness of significant psychophysiological and physiological characteristics.

Figure 1 presents a theoretical model of personnel SW determination as a social action. This model allows to understand what complex of influences the person experiences and what at him or at managers there are possibilities to provide his SW. Quite reasonably arise questions about self-management and management of SW.

Figure 1.

Theoretical model of system determination of staff subjective well-being as a social action.

Certainly, each level of determination includes the whole complex of determinants. Nevertheless, it seems appropriate to consider values as the main components of the determination of well-being at the levels of culture of society, organizational culture, and personality, because they are predictors of behavior. Other indicators determine the individual specificity of manifestation of SW. On psychophysiological level of determination stress as a key factor of emotional representation of well-being and psychological resilience/non-vitalization of personnel is considered.

2.2.2 Society’s cultural values as a determinant of personnel security

So, the first level—values of national culture—influences a person very much. Personnel of companies is a natural part of society, so, as any member of society, the culture of society tells a person how to behave properly and under what conditions to feel quite well. Studies of the values of Russians constantly show the priority of values of stability and security, which are in a certain contradiction with the risks that innovations bring. However, a worldwide survey of values shows that most Russians have a positive attitude toward the development of technology: up to 76% of young people and 73.5% in the older group ([37], 15–17). This, of course, does not mean that the majority is ready to work under the organizational changes associated with the introduction of innovation. Using an innovative drug is not the same as learning and restructuring one’s activities when introducing it into production.

Studies conducted according to Schwartz’s methodology, taking into account the specifics of age groups, showed little value consensus in 2011. This means that the general trends identified in the sociological surveys are not unifying, and especially this applies to the value alternative openness to change (independence, independence, propensity for new and risky actions)—preservation (person’s dependence on social and, as a rule, routine behavior programs and in addition the search for social protection) [38]. These data are important for understanding the value heterogeneity of Russian society in relation to the variability of living and working conditions.

The priority of the values of stability and security remains at the present time. The least represented in Russia, as well as in most post-socialist countries, is the class of values of growth (values of openness to change and care), which distinguish the population of more prosperous countries [39].

But still, by 2020, there has been a definite shift toward the values of openness from the traditional values of preservation for Russians. It is the result of several reasons: an increase in the quality of life in Russia and a decrease in the real dangers and risks threatening the population, an increase in the availability of new consumer practices, and the influence of global cultural trends that affirm the values of personal choice and risk. An additional factor is the gradual inclusion in the surveyed population (over 15 years) of new generations of Russians, socialized under the conditions of expanded, in comparison with the Soviet time, personal freedom [39]. Thus, the values of culture determine the SW of the Russian in situations characterized by stability and predictability, the desire for novelty does not imply growth and development if the sense of security is violated. But there are also certain positive attitudes toward innovations among a part of the population, and management can use them, contributing to the development of personnel security in conditions of their implementation, supporting supporters and reorienting opponents in value. But, of course, it is easier to stick to proven practices and not to enter into a value conflict with the majority.

2.2.3 Organizational culture as a determinant of the subjective well-being of personnel

The level of organizational conditions manifested in organizational culture (OC) of the company is influenced by values of national culture. G. Hofstede in his research studies noted that high level of collectivism and negative attitude toward uncertainty with short horizon of future orientation are characteristic for OC of the companies of USSR [40]. By now there have been some changes in the culture of society and the need to maintain the viability and competitiveness of the company prompts to follow the values that do not always coincide with the obvious values of national culture. In modern Russia, there are enterprises successfully entering the new technological mode (hereinafter—innovative companies) and companies with long-term problems of transition to innovative format of development, living at the expense of state protectionism (hereinafter—ordinary companies). The models of OC with a pronounced adhocracy component are typical for innovative companies, while for ordinary companies—clan-hierarchical or hierarchical-clan types of OC, preserved from the Soviet period with the administrative-command type of economy (according to the typology of K. Cameron and R. Quinn [41, 42, 43]. These OC types are very stable, because their basic values are fully consistent with the culture of society.

Management, wishing for innovative development, faces the task of changing OC. This is a difficult, but solvable problem. This is evidenced by the very fact that there are innovative companies with appropriate types of OC. The necessity to change the OC for conservative managers is a problem, depriving them of the SW, in which they were staying, being in the unity of society values and the hierarchical-clannish model of OC. The requirements of top management of transition to innovative economy either force them to make unsuccessful attempts of organizational changes for many years, to change themselves, or to give way to managers, for one reason or another (family upbringing, specifics of educational institutions) to adherents of innovative values. Such managers experience SW when there is an opportunity to put their efforts into transferring the company to an innovative format of development.

As values are predictors of behavior and have the function of sense-making, value correspondence provides acceptance of necessity of innovative development of the company and creates motivation-target vectors on behavior providing such development, including own professional development and self-development. S. Duchek’s fundamental research sums up the results of company viability research, reveals the role of human capital, personnel training and building an open, trusting and learning-oriented OC, capable of providing the psychological resilience of personnel ([44], 215, 236–238). Such OC, according to K. Cameron and R. Quinn’s typology, has at its core the innovative values of a critical mass of personnel, which are predictors of viable behavior with the achievement of new levels of adaptation.

For example, OC tells the employee what to choose as a vector of his labor activity: solidarity or competitiveness? innovativeness or traditionalism? The behavior of employees shows management the success/failure of changing the OC.

The role of higher needs and their corresponding meanings in labor activity remain poorly understood. The formation of subjective well-being in the OC is usually created by requests and reinforcement of correct behavior on the part of managers. The approval of managers creates a sense of SW that the employee wants to retain or reinforce. Therefore, in different types of OC, staff SW can be formed on a different behavioral basis. Innovative demand in the bureaucratic management paradigm generates stress and resistance of the personnel with the meanings of the stable world. Happiness in labor activity and corresponding activity at the level of enthusiasm accompanied by eustress can be expected, if the employee has formed meanings of acceptance of innovations and successfully moves in achievement of the purposes generated by these meanings.

2.2.4 Level of personal determination of subjective well-being of the personnel

At the level of personal determination, individual values of the employee induce him to follow or resist corporate requirements, to aspire to social and organizational safety, or to creative self-realization in work, connected with constant introduction of technological and managerial innovations.

Lack of value conformity generates a value conflict intrapersonal and between the employee and the corporate policy of the company, usually hidden, but very strong [43], especially when such conflict has a massive nature and forms the basis of the organizational culture (OC) of the company. Their latency makes them especially strong, because no one denies the need for innovation, but also to take them in their work most of the staff is not willing. Value conflicts, like any other, violate the SW and cause a desire to return to the attractive conflict-free past.

The very fact of value alignment increases the confidence of the staff in management and the level of employee SW. Moreover, controlled changes in OC can and do reduce the dependence of employee values and behavior on the culture of society. In a certain sense, the issue of reducing such influence may be a cause for controversy of an important worldview nature, but the challenges facing the business, related to the viability of the company in the global economy, contribute to the translation of this issue into a specific plane. In turn, employees who become adherents of innovation have an impact on the culture of society, making it more innovative.

Employees have significant differences in the affective, cognitive, social, professional, and psychosomatic dimensions of SW, depending on individual possession of the necessary set of competencies of all types: from ethical, personal, and cognitive to functional and metacompetencies [45] and differently feel the psychological costs of innovation, examples of which are presented in Table 1 ([46], 134).

Needs (by A. Maslow)	Costs of innovation	Socio-psychological effects
Homeostatic	Changing dynamic stereotypes, increasing stress (training, professional development, mastering new technologies)	Fatigue, malaise
Security	Anxiety over perceived or real lack of competence. Worries about job security, stress of change, possible demotion of status	Mistrust of management, declining organizational loyalty, hidden conflicts
Acceptance and communication	Reduction of interpersonal communication, acceptance by management depending on production efficiency in the context of innovation	Reduced work motivation, the priority of social roles of family and private life, strengthening clan values that inhibit organizational development
Self-Esteem	Doubts about your competence
Self-Realization	Lack of competence

Table 1.

Examples of the psychological costs of innovation.

It should be taken into account that in the conditions of innovative development, the content of competences becomes very dynamic; that is why the advanced corporate training acquires special importance. Such training is positively perceived by the personnel as it helps to achieve real value-determined compliance with the requirements of the developing company. Moreover, it makes the future more certain and. therefore, less stressful. Specific competences and the level of their relative importance in the overall competence of an employee naturally differ depending on the type of business, but the value fit remains a systemic factor of an employee’s SW.

Value reorientation and the formation of motivation for labor activity and professional development in the conditions of the introduction of innovations are realized without increasing the value conflict and the resistance associated with it, if the changes carried out are not accompanied by a strong stress of change. We are talking about the determination of SW at the psychophysiological level.

2.2.5 Psychophysiological level of determination of subjective well-being of the personnel

The psychophysiological level of determination of SW is influenced by the first three levels. For example, an employee would like to continue working, but the stress of not fulfilling traditional obligations (for example, the roles of grandparents are expected in the family) stops. Some employees’ desire for stability causes dissatisfaction with management, creating a demand to learn new technologies. Other employees would like to use new technologies, but are stopped by personal anxiety: what if they fail. The low level of performance may not allow you to actively improve your skills, especially after a day of work: fatigue develops too quickly. And these examples could go on.

High level of stress experienced by employees increases accidents, causes decision-making errors, reduces activity efficiency up to its complete disintegration, increases conflict of labor relations, causes desire to consume alcohol and psychoactive substances, to stop working, to retire, promotes professional burnout, destroys health. Stress negatively affects the quality of life of an employee in the workplace and outside the organization, negatively affects family relationships, connections with close people [47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54]. Thus, anxiety, worry as precursors of distress, stress intensification up to its most unfavorable forms with its transition to the chronic stage are the key conditions and determinants of the decrease in the resilience of the staff, the disadvantage of the employee in the workplace and in life activity in general.

The brief analysis of determination of SW in the conditions of introduction of innovations allows to define OC of the company with a vector of its development as a system-forming determinant. It is explained by the fact that OC, solving the problems of external adaptation and internal integration [55], firstly, is a kind of psychological buffer between the culture of society and personnel, mitigating the influence of cultural values, which, in particular in Russia, are the factors inhibiting the innovative development. Secondly, OC under certain conditions is a carrier and transmitter of values and behaviors to the personnel that contribute to the innovative development of the company. Thirdly, OC provides organizational support (corporate training, encouragement of self-education, and adoption of innovations) to employees motivated for development together with the company and their labor involvement through management practices appropriate to its type. And, finally, OC is able to reduce the stress of change and even promote the eustress that accompanies motivated creative work, generating and supporting the SW of the staff.

Overcoming of destructive influence of stress is that share of happiness, which brings labor activity in his experience. SW in labor activity extends to the experience of happiness in family and friendship at the expense of the positive emotional states brought into these types of relations.

The variability of the value basis of OC of Russian companies allows us to investigate the specifics of personnel security in innovative companies that successfully enter the technological mode of industry 4.0 and companies with many years of difficulties in transition to the innovative format of development (hereinafter referred to as ordinary companies).

2.3 Subjective personnel well-being in organizational cultures of different types: results of empirical research

2.3.1 Design of the empirical study

The bases of the empirical study were two manufacturing companies (innovative and ordinary) and two medical companies (innovative and ordinary). The innovative companies are highly viable, the management of ordinary companies sets the objectives of innovative development, but experiences significant resistance from the staff.

Type OC in innovative companies is based on market values with preservation of the developed relations in collectives and the expressed innovative component (on typology C.Cameron-R.Quinn) [41]. The hierarchical component in the companies is less represented than the market component. Type OC of ordinary companies is hierarchical-clannish with minimal representation of an innovative component. In the industrial companies, there are gyms, in medical—there are practically no programs, except for the corporate celebrations common for all companies. Corporate training is conducted in all companies. In ordinary companies, it is more formal, the priority is given to theoretical classes, and a certificate of completion of the program is obligatory. In innovative companies, corporate training is carried out with a shift in the balance of theoretical and practical training in favor of practice, the project method and team work are used, independent professional development in third-party organizations and internships are supported. However, none of the companies work on the purposeful development of the meanings of innovative development. Innovative values are formed spontaneously.

Respondents: Engineers and doctors of resident and innovative companies, men of three age groups: under 35, 35–59, 60, and older (N=425). The work experience of each respondent is less than 3 years, which means that the employees are fully adapted to the organizational conditions of the companies. The results of the study of female staff SW are presented in earlier publications [56, 57].

Methods: At the level of society’s culture, the results of sociological research on the general cultural values of the Russians were analyzed. Characteristics of organizational culture were studied using the OCAI method of K. Cameron and R. Quinn. Power distance was studied with the help of the author’s questionnaire.

Questionnaire question. How does your immediate supervisor address your subordinates in a work situation if he/she is satisfied or dissatisfied with the employee’s work? Check the following boxes in the following form.

Score	The form of address	In a work situation.
		Under 35		35–59		60 and over
		Satisfied	Not satisfied.	Satisfied	Not satisfied.	Satisfied	Not satisfied.
5	By surname
4	By name and patronymic
3	By full name
2	By patronymic.
1	By the name of

At the personality level, as indicators of SW were studied using the author’ questionnaire, combining questions with direct scaling, self-assessment of fatigue from work activities and organizational conditions, self-assessment of health, psychological well-being in the labor collective. Example of questions of the Questionnaire “Subjective well-being in the workplace”:

Question 5.2.

Is everything okay with your cardiovascular system?

−5____−4_____−3_____−2____−1_____0_____+1_____+2_____+3_____+4_____+5

I literally feel like an invalid I feel completely healthy.

At the psychophysiological level of SW determination, the experienced organizational stress was evaluated using R. Kessler’s test [58]. The effects of SW included values of innovative organizational development, personal involvement in the work process, age-related self-esteem, and independent work on self-education. Priorities in values of organizational development are revealed with the help of OCAI method of K. Cameron and R. Quinn. The method of personal self-identification by M. Kuhn and T. McPartland [59] was used to determine personal involvement in work activities. Behavioral characteristics were studied with the help of the author’s questionnaire, the answers to the questions of which involve checking.

Example of questions in the “Working with Information in Professional Activity” questionnaire:

Question 4: How often do you refer to publications on professional Russian sites?

4.1. very day_____ (5 points)

4.2. Every week________ (4 points).

4.3. Every month_________ (3 points)

4.4. Several times a year______(1 point)

4.5. Never_________ (0 points)

Question 5: Which Russian professional websites do you find most useful in your professional field?

____________________

2.3.2 Key results of the empirical study of personnel security of ordinary and innovative Russian companies

Indicators of subjective well-being in labor activity: The results are presented in Tables 2 and 3.

Woz plant	Company	Stress	Power Distance			Fatigue		W	Health		Psychological well-being in the work collective
			Type of situation			TD	EI		CC	NS
			Satisfied	Not satisfied.	W
Up to 35	OP	20.5	3.6	4.4	**	7.3	8.8	*	2.4	1.9	−2.3
	IP	14.0	2.0	3.3	**	4.4	3.1	*	3.6	2.9	3.4
	U	*	**	**		**	**		*	*	**
	OM	32.6	3.6	4.5	**	6.1	8.7	**	1.6	1.9	0.8
	IM	26.5	2.2	2.5	—	5.5	4.5	—	1.9	2.1	3.2
	U	**	**	**		*	**		—	—	**
35–59	OP	23.0	3.8	4.5	**	7.6	7.2	—	1.5	2.6	−2.6
	IP	13.4	2.1	3.5	**	5.7	4.3	*	3.6	4.1	3.7
	U	**	**	**		*	*		**	**	**
	OM	27.5	3.9	4.5	*	6.2	6.9	—	1.5	2.0	2.4
	IM	22.5	3.4	4.0	—	4.6	5.0	—	2.0	3.6	4.2
	U	*	*	*		*	*		*	*	*
From 60	OP	21.8	3.7	4.8	*	5.0	4.9	—	0.7	2.6	1.5
	IP	16.5	2.0	3.3	**	4.5	3.1	**	2.1	3.6	3.5
	U	*	**	**		—	*		*	*	*
	OM	27.1	4.0	4.4	—	3.2	5.7	*	1.1	2.3	1.8
	IM	16.9	3.5	3.5		2.7	2.9	—	2.4	4.5	4.4
	U	**	—	*		—	**		*	**	**

Table 2.

Subjective well-being of male staff of ordinal and innovative manufacturing and medical companies.

^*

p ≤ 0.05.

^**

p ≤ 0.01.

OP: ordinary production; IP: innovative production companies; OM: ordinary medical; IM: innovative medical companies; OU: organizational fatigue; S/O: self-esteem; CC: cardiovascular system condition; and NS: nervous system condition.

Statistical significance of differences by Mann-Whitney U-test; Wilcoxon W- test:

Woz plant	Com of the company	Values components of organizational culture						Personal Involvement		S/o age	Independent work with professional information
		Clan		W	Adhocracy		W	Current	Perspective (5 years)
		Current	Desirable		Current	Desirable
Up to 35	OP	22.9	37.8	**	10.4	12.8	—	1.4	1.1	10.6	10.5
	IP	17.6	23.9	*	28.3	33.2	*	1.9	2.2	−2.8	21.0
	U	*	*		**	**		*	*	**	*
	OM	25.4	28.9	*	17.1	18.8	—	1.5	1.5	10.7	14.5
	IM	20.8	20.1	—	18.8	23.0	*	2.3	2.4	−1.7	32.3
	U	*	*		—	*		*	*	**	**
35–59	OP	28.3	38.2	*	11.4	12.4	—	1.6	0.6	7.3	12.5
	IP	17.4	18.3	—	27.5	33.4	*	1.9	1.6	−6.0	24.5
	U	*	**		**	**		*	*	**	*
	OM	30.9	35.7	T	16.8	18.4	—	1.7	1.8	10.3	12.5
	IM	27.7	21.3	—	24.1	28.4	*	2.2	2.5	−3.2	35.5
	U	*	*		*	**		T	*	**	**
From 60	OP	24.1	35.0	*	18.2	18.8	—	1.25	0.3	8.8	5.5
	IP	16.5	21.8	T	26.0	31.5	*	1.5	1.7	−7.4	30.3
	U	*	*		**	**		T	*	**	**
	OM	29.7	38.4	*	18.2	18.8	—	1.8	1.1	5.6	7.5
	IM	20.2	25.8	T	26.0	31.5	*	2.4	2.2	−3.2	20.5
	U	*	*		**	**		*	*	**	**

Table 3.

Effects of subjective well-being/disadvantage of male staff of ordinary and innovative companies.

^*

p ≤ 0.05.

**

p ≤ 0.01.

OP: ordinary manufacturing; IP: innovative manufacturing companies; OM: ordinary medical; IM: innovative medical companies; In the column Self-work with professional information the sum of scores on 10 questions, the maximum score is 50. T - trend, - no statistically significant differences.

Statistical significance of differences by Mann-Whitney U test; Wilcoxon W test:

The data in Table 2 show that SW of the personnel of innovative and ordinary companies, regardless of the sphere of business and age of the respondents, significantly differs by all studied indicators: fatigue, self-assessment of health, psychological well-being in the work collective. It is noteworthy that employees of innovative companies feel fatigue from work significantly less than their colleagues and peers in ordinary companies. The exception is employees older than 60 years old, the differences in the degree of fatigue from work do not reach the level of statistical significance.

This data suggests that the fear of employees of ordinary companies to innovate is vain. Work with new technologies after mastering them will be less time-consuming and leave more energy for non-labor activities. Organizational fatigue will also go away. Regardless of age, organizational fatigue in innovative companies is less than in ordinary companies. This is especially true for younger employees, with a score of 8.8 at an ordinary company versus 3.1 at an innovative company for engineers, p ≤ 0.01 and 8.7 at an innovative clinic versus 4.5 at an ordinary clinic, p ≤ 0.01. These data show that university training is more likely to match the organizational conditions of innovative companies, and the management requirements of ordinary companies are too heavy for young employees, stifling their creativity and initiative. Their work fatigue is significantly less than that of the organizational conditions. Then comes adaptation to these demands, and only in the senior group of resident physicians does fatigue from organizational conditions significantly exceed fatigue from work activities. The explanation most likely lies in the fact that this age group of doctors with their work algorithms developed over many years and a reputation as an experienced doctor is the most unpleasant and tiring of the management requirements of switching to innovative work methods (5.7 points of fatigue from organizational conditions versus 3.2 points of fatigue from labor activity, which, incidentally, is the minimum level of fatigue from labor activity for a doctor).

We can see that the self-assessment of health, both in relation to the cardiovascular system and the nervous system, is also better in most cases in innovative companies. The differences do not reach statistical significance only in the group of young doctors. They still feel very well, while their peer engineers feel healthier in innovative companies. Self-assessment of health declines somewhat with age, especially with regard to the cardiovascular system, but it is still higher in innovative companies. Particularly appealing is the fact that employees of innovative companies have a better nervous system condition: even at the age of over 60, it reaches 3.6 and 4.5 points against 2.6 and 2.3 points for employees of ordinary companies.

This is no coincidence. The study examined the health indicators most clearly associated with stress. It can be seen that stress indicators are significantly higher in ordinal companies than in innovative ones. In all cases, they averaged higher than 20 points on the R. Kessler scales. The young doctors of the ordinariate company have a stress index of 32.6 points. It is also high in the young doctors of the innovative clinic—26.5 points, but still significantly lower. The high level of stress in young doctors seems to be related to the high responsibility of their work activity. There is data in the literature that high social responsibility with a high level of stress may not reduce SW [60]. Here it can be attributed to the young doctors of an innovative clinic, but not to the doctors of an ordinary clinic, because more than 30 points according to R. Kessler correspond to a pronounced distress. Undoubtedly, we are talking about a self-assessment that may reflect severe experiences at the level of subjective distress, but not associated with serious mental distress. Nevertheless, the average stress scores in all age groups of respondents exceeded 20 points, which indicates a pronounced subjective disorder. In all age groups of the personnel of innovative companies, stress indicators do not exceed 20 points, with the exception of doctors not only young, but also middle-aged, but in ordinaries their peers’ stress is significantly higher.

Special attention should be paid to the indicators of psychological well-being in the work collective. Here we can see that the indicators in innovative companies are significantly higher. In ordinary companies, young employees and middle-aged engineers have indicators in the zone of negative values or close to zero and become somewhat higher along with adaptation to organizational conditions. At first glance, this is paradoxical data. Personnel of ordinary companies work in the organizational culture with a pronounced clan component and strive for its unconditional dominance. The clan component with the value of maintaining good relations is usually a good psychological protection for employees at the expense of solidarity, even exceeding the measure of maintaining an acceptable level of work performance [61]. In situations of attempts to introduce innovations by the management of ordinary companies, the function of psychological protection ceases to work. Conflicting relations and contradictions increase in the units, anxiety and stress experiences grow, which causes a sense of subjective disadvantage.

Table 2 contains a factor that is an inherent characteristic of hierarchical-clannish OC, described by G. Hofstede as applied to the then Soviet and now Russian management model—a long power distance, the separation of managers and executives. It is significantly shorter in innovative companies. In ordinary companies, even when the manager is satisfied with the actions of his subordinates, the distance is between 3.6 and 3.9 points, whereas in innovative companies, the range is 2.0–3.5 points. In situations where the manager is not satisfied with the actions of the subordinate, in ordinal companies, the distance always increases to high values in the interval of 4.4–4.8 points with a maximum of 5 points. The exception is the senior doctors. In their case the increase in distance does not reach the level of statistical significance, although the distance is quite pronounced. These data add to the picture of provocation of subordinates’ stress by the supervisor. Performers do not feel the psychological opportunity to tell the manager about their doubts and difficulties cannot count on help and support. A supervisor implements an autocratic model of managerial interaction [62]. He is a source of demands, control, anxiety, fears, strong stress, formation of a sense of subjective disadvantage.

In innovative companies, managers are much more accessible. This is especially noticeable in the innovation clinic. There, even when the manager is dissatisfied, he does not lengthen the distance significantly. This shows the special sensitivity of the medical manager, who understands that the stress created by an increase in power distance can provoke a high level of stress, the consequence of which can be errors at the cost of a human life. The management of innovative companies implements a supportive model of managerial interaction [62], which is a factor of stress prevention and SW in difficult conditions.

Table 3 shows the effects of SW of the personnel of innovative and ordinary companies.

These data show that the individual values of personnel in Russia with regard to the organizational development of companies differ significantly in the key areas of OC development: clan and adhocracy. It can be seen that innovative and ordinal companies, regardless of the sphere of business, differ significantly in these indicators of both the current state of OC and the prospective one. The clan component is higher in all cases of comparison, and its representation fluctuates between 22.9 and 30.9% in ordinal companies, and the personnel want to strengthen it up to 28.9–38.2%. The minimal indicator of the desire to develop the company according to the clan type is typical for young doctors, but the management does not use this opportunity, and all other age groups have higher indicators with the maximum in doctors of the older age group. Thus, one can see an increase in conservative attitudes among physicians along with age. In engineers, the rates of adherence to the clan component of OC are similar across age groups.

There is also a tendency to want to strengthen the existing level of the clan component of the OC in innovative companies. This level in the current OC is represented in the interval of 16.5–27.7%, and the interval of 20.1–25.8% is desirable, that is significantly lower than it takes place in ordinary companies. It is noteworthy that the minimum level of the clan component in innovative companies is also recorded in young doctors, and the maximum in older doctors, as in ordinary companies. This indicates that the age trend of increasing clan commitment is more pronounced in medical labor.

Analysis of staff attitudes toward the adhocracy component of OC shows significant differences between innovative and ordinary companies. The actual level of adhocracy in the OC of innovative companies in most cases is significantly higher than in ordinary companies: the interval is 18.8–28.3% in innovative companies against 10.4–18.2%. Employees of ordinary companies wish to strengthen the adhocracy component, statistically significantly not exceeding the existing indicators. Employees of innovative companies are committed to innovative development, and their desires for innovativeness lie between 23.0 and 33.4%. The exception is the evaluations of young doctors of the innovation clinic. Their level of innovativeness appears to be lower than for all other groups and is not statistically significantly different from the corresponding assessments in the ordinariate company. It is also interesting that they lag significantly behind their older colleagues in their desires for innovativeness. Apparently, they expected a higher level of innovative technology, but also too much growth frightens them. If we recall the maximum level of stress in this group of respondents (26.5 points. Table 2), the values of innovativeness indicators determined by too high professional responsibility become clear.

Other effects of SW in innovative companies were also revealed. First of all, it is a higher level of labor involvement both at the moment of research and in a 5-year perspective. The indicators of involvement of older age groups seem to be worthy of special attention. While young and middle-aged employees are characterized by close indicators of actual and prospective engagement, with significantly higher indicators in innovative companies, older employees in ordinary companies are characterized by a sharp decline in prospective engagement. In engineers from 1.25 points to 0.3 points, p ≤ 0.01, and in physicians from 1.8 points to 1.1 points, p ≤ 0.01. In innovation companies, older engineers have lower engagement scores than younger age groups, but still significantly higher than peers working in an ordinate company and do not decline in prospective engagement (1.5 and 1.7 points). For older physicians, engagement scores remain high and continue to be so prospectively (2.4 and 2.2 points). These data indicate a high level of SW of senior staff in innovative companies.

Work at innovative companies encourages employees not only to improve their qualifications, which is also done at ordinary companies, but also to work independently with professional information. One can see significant differences in the involvement of the staff of innovative and ordinary companies in this process. Doctors are more involved than engineers. But it should be mentioned here that manufacturing companies have translation bureaus, and this can partially explain the differences in the performance of engineers and doctors. In addition, doctors seem to be more inclined to work on their own professional reputation than engineers, due to the specific nature of their work.

Indicators of employees’ self-assessment of age deserve special attention. At innovative companies, employees feel significantly younger than their chronological age, unlike their peers at ordinary companies. Employees at ordinary companies feel significantly older. Young engineers and doctors feel, on average, more than 10 years older than their chronological age, while their peers at innovative companies are not much, but younger: 1.7–2.8 years. Most likely, there is a very strong emotional component in the assessment of one’s age sense of self by young employees of ordinal companies, created by bureaucratic organizational conditions, formal requirements without the provision of help and support. For older ages, there is a layering of fatigue and declining health. The self-esteem of older employees of innovative companies seems particularly significant: engineers feel 7.4 years younger on average, doctors 3.2 years younger. The difference in assessments seems to be related to the fact that doctors more adequately assess their condition than engineers. These scores explain well the high willingness of older employees to continue their work activities and their involvement in the work process. They feel SW in the workplace and do not want to lose it, unlike senior employees of ordinaries. Even as they continue to work, they, deprived of a sense of SW, are more likely to support the financial well-being of their families with their work. Were it not for this factor, they would likely leave the workplace, which makes them tired, losing their health, and carrying the stress of the management demands of engaging in innovative activities.

The readiness of employees to strengthen innovation in companies with a pronounced adhocracy component in the OC indicates that their SW, manifested in high work capacity (low level of fatigue), good health, good psychological well-being in the workplace with a low level of stress, indicates that the innovative format of their companies not only does not destroy the achieved level of SW, but also supports it by understanding the need and opportunity to be at the forefront of innovative development.

And, on the contrary, employees of ordinary companies are afraid of increasing innovativeness, although they do not deny its necessity. But the organizational conditions manifested in the OC restrain the adoption of innovation by the staff and even prevent them. Experienced feeling of subjective disadvantage deprives the staff of the desire to cooperate with management. Employees want growth of a clannish component of OC, but results of research show that in the conditions of introduction of innovations in hierarchical-clannish model of OC aspiration to psychological protection at the expense of support of good relations of SW is not reached.

If we analyze SW indicators, it seems that the age self-assessment of employees can be reasonably considered an integrative indicator. Behind the age self-assessment there is a phenomenon of socio-psychological age of the personnel: managers also assess the personnel as “older,” irrespective of chronological age in problem companies and as “younger” in innovative companies ([46], 200), [47, 48]. Figure 2 shows the correlations between OC values and significant indicators of SW.

Figure 2.

Correlations between the dominant values of the organizational culture of companies and the indicators of SW of employees in the context of innovation.

We can see that in the conditions of OC with the dominance of hierarchy, typical for ordinary companies, hierarchy and labor involvement are characterized by a statistically significant inverse relationship, hierarchy denies innovativeness, increases the level of stress experienced by the staff and positively connected with the older age self-perception (subjective disadvantage). The opposite situation in OC with the dominance of innovativeness. The more innovative values are represented in OC, the younger (subjective well-being) employees feel, the more they are personally involved in labor activity, the more they do not like hierarchy. The connection between adhocracy and the actual behavior of an employee to develop his/her professional competence through self-education is also significant.

Summarizing the analysis of the results obtained, it should be noted that the transition to an innovative format of development took place over more than 20 years, and in ordinary companies did not take place at all, despite the setting by management of innovative development goals. Technological progress in innovative companies occurred at the expense of management’s efforts to change organizational culture and the use of management practices corresponding to this change. As a result of many years of shaping the SW of employees in the context of adopting innovation, there has been a transformation of employee values from stability and relationships in favor of innovation and success in a competitive environment. Could this change have occurred more quickly? It seems that the management of companies did not use all resources in the development of personnel of companies. And first of all, a semantic resource. Training, first of all, connected with personal development, is positively perceived by the personnel, gives daily positive emotions, raises SW of the personnel [63, 64].

Modern labor offers ample opportunity to find and give meaning to it. For example, the meanings of conscious participation in a “green” economy compared with an economy that creates material goods, to the detriment of the environment, the very basis of life, are open to personnel with higher needs. But for personnel with predominantly deficit needs are not independently accessible without special assistance, for example, through corporate training. “Green” economy is able to give the necessary and desirable benefits to both, but only on the basis of the introduction of innovative technologies. This connection opens the finding of personal meanings by employees of innovative companies or those transitioning to an innovative format of development and experiencing significant difficulties in connection with this transition, and the stress associated with it. The ESG Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance Standards provide assistance in finding personal meanings in the adoption of innovation. In December 2019, the UK Financial Reporting Council published an updated version of its Code of Governance for Institutional Investors and their Advisors, setting out the highest requirements for responsible governance. It states very clearly that the purpose of governance should be “to create long-term value for clients and beneficiaries, leading to sustainable benefits for the economy, the environment and society” [65]. In Russia, few top managers know about these standards, but practically nothing is known to executives, though for economy they are a basis of attraction of investors, and for employees they have huge humanitarian value, including in finding meanings and purposes of development in labor activity, gaining of reliable basis for SW, and happiness in labor activity in conditions of acceptance of innovations. This new direction of research and management practice certainly needs to be tested, but the prospects seem inspiring.

3. Conclusions

Subjective well-being of personnel is both a humanitarian task of management and a factor of psychological resilience of company personnel, which manifests itself in the involvement of personnel in the innovative development of companies in turbulent conditions of external and internal environment. Subjective well-being has functions of increasing trust to management and emotional regulator of personnel’s acceptance of innovations. The formation of subjective well-being as an interactive social action takes place in the context of its systemic determination by the culture of society, organizational culture, personality, and organism. The key determinant of SW is the company’s OC, which is an intermediary between the influences of the culture of society and the requirements of management, solving the problems of innovative development, a carrier and translator of innovative values and their corresponding behavior patterns, a factor of organizational stress prevention.

Innovativeness in itself is a factor of SW if it is realized in the model of OC, having a pronounced adhocracy component, and in the corresponding management practices. In this case values of development, model of administrative interaction realized by management, and supporting labor and educational efforts of employees, can be a basis of formation of viable culture.

Personnel security is provided by five basic directions of work of management. The first is associated with the necessary changes in the organizational culture of the company in the direction of achieving the goals of innovative development and is based not only on the value of innovation, but also the value of employees as human capital of the company. If the value of the employee is not the true value of management, it is impossible to implement management practices that provide value reorientation and a new value commitment of staff, and the organizational situation continues to preserve the value conflict and confrontation between management and the rest of the staff. The second direction is manifested in the work to reduce or even remove the psychological costs of innovation. The third is in the supportive style of managerial interaction, which is established by management up to service leadership and ensures that employees trust managers as sources of help in solving complex problems. Fourth, the prevention of stress of innovation, which is realized in the anticipation of changes and preliminary preparation for them on the basis of wide informing the staff about the upcoming changes and the guarantee of preparation for them. And the last, positive reinforcement in terms of behavioral psychology. The problem is that they are usually available to all employees, regardless of the attitude to innovative change, regardless of productivity and quality of work. This approach demotivates the adherents of innovation and creates opportunities to retain personnel focused on minimizing efforts to achieve organizational goals. In this case, programs become a cost, not an investment, and frustrate management. The serious restrictions in realization of these directions can be the generalized approach to the personnel as having general characteristics without taking into account different readiness of employees to accept innovations, adherence to strengthening of a clannish component of OK, desired by the most part of the personnel, absence of competence in realization of supporting and service management interaction.

A separate, not used yet, resource of creation of SW and happiness in labor activity can be meaningful development of the personnel, creating an essential impulse of activity in the direction of increase of innovativeness in labor. It seems that use of this resource will give the effects beyond labor activity. The transition to the meaningfulness of innovative labor, from the meanings of the known world to the meaningfulness of a more complex world and itself in it, in the movement to the unknown, the loss of anxiety and fear of the new, will certainly be important in other areas of human practice and in the education of new generations, already more ready to search for meanings and happiness.