ECONOMIC ANALYSES OF JOB SEARCH PROCESSES AND DECISION SUPPORT

Bruno Frey, Professor of Economics at the University of Zurich, and others are increasingly investigating "Happiness" in economics as a new field of interest in economics and business sciences. [3, Preface] When asking "What makes us happy?" Layard summarizes seven factors for happiness of which one is work. [26, p. 78] For companies as well as societies the happiness or satisfaction of employees is essential as employees who are happy with their lives in general and with their job in specific are healthier, are less absent from work, work with more motivation and preciseness and are therewith more productive. [3] Lots of management and work-psychology literature is available in the field of how to increase employee satisfaction and happiness in companies - it is one of the main targets of human resource management today. Nonetheless the awareness or realistic valuation of individuals about the potential utility derived from different jobs will have an influence of which job they will apply for and how they will sell themselves. Therefore it seems necessary to analyze first what makes people happy at work in general, and second what are the individual characteristics and necessities to be met by a company and job in order to make a person happy. This article researches on parameters leading to happiness of individuals at work and methods and possibilities of supporting individuals in finding out about themselves and their personal happy parameters. Potential aim is to therewith create a base for improvement of decisions making processes in recruiting and job search and therewith achieve better matching results for employees and companies.