Bart Oomens

‘’Creating sustainable performance’’

Over the last 7 years, Gretchen Spreitzer has conducted research into 'thriving', also defined
as ''the joint experience of vitality''. During the investigation, we surveyed around 1200
white and blue workers in a range of sectors including higher education, healthcare, financial
services, consulting, insurance, maritime, energy and manufacturing. We collected
information from employees and bosses, as well as retention rates, health, burn-out, overall
work performance, and organizational citizen behavior.

During the research, they also found out that it is very important for leaders to be thriving.
In a survey conducted among different industries that thriving leaders 17% higher higher by
their subordinates as more effective than leaders who report lower levels of prosperity. If it
goes well, the inherent energy of leaders is contagious to those who lead.

In the research four different types of thriving have emerged.

 Providing decision-making discretion
 Sharing information
 Minimizing incivility
 Offering performance feedback

Providing decision-making discretion

All employees at different levels within the company are encouraged to use their own
resources to make decisions that have a direct impact on their work. By giving your
employees more freedom in decision flow, this encourages thriving. Employees get more
energy of responsibility so they feel more effectivity with the company. This results in
employees doing better work because they want to do their best for good results.

Sharing information

Sharing a lot of information (Strategic information, developments of competitors and the

company) improves performance. This is because employees understand better what is
expected of them and why, for example, a certain strategy is chosen.
Bart Oomens

Minimizing incivility

People who do not obey decent rules are defined in the article “the prevalence of the
exchange of seemingly inconsequential inconsiderate words and deeds that violate
conventional norms of workplace conduct.” We discovered this in our research with
Christine Pearseon:
 That half of employees who had experienced uncivil behavior at work intentionally
decreased their efforts.
 More than a third deliberately decreased the quality of their work.
 Two-thirds spent a lot of time avoiding the offender, and about the same number
said their performance had declined.
When people come into contact with powerlessness, their vitality decreases. People then
focus more on tasks that are obvious and hardly take any risks. If employees work in a
positive working atmosphere, they get a positive zest for work. A positive working
environment is better for the effectiveness of the employees than a negative working
environment

Offering performance feedback

Through constructed feedback it gives employees opportunities to learn. Because feedback

is given, people can see what they can improve on themselves. This results in less
uncertainty among employees and better work productivity and enables thriving.

For companies, there are several ways to stimulate staff thriving. Most of these ways are
easy to use. For companies, there are several ways to stimulate staff thriving. Most of these
ways are easy to use. Thriving is a vital force that creates a healthy, good presentation and
committed work environment.

I think leaders and employees will have to work on the vitality of the company and promote
the learning process of the employees. So that employees become eager to learn. This will
improve the performance of the employees.