| Summary: | Creating a happy environment among the employees of organizations is important including those working with the higher educational institutions. However, developing the right model and instrument to measure happiness is critical as they must be relevant to the context and setting of the study. Reviewing the existing work on the happiness index in higher educational institutions, most studies have adapted the PERMA model that was developed by Martin Seligman in 2011. The model comprises positive emotions that refer to hedonic feelings of happiness (e.g. feeling joyful, content, and cheerful), engagement that refers to psychological connection to activities or organizations (e.g. feeling absorbed, interested, and engaged in life), positive relationships that include feeling socially integrated, cared about and supported by others, and satisfied with one’s social connections, meaning that refers to believing that one’s life is valuable and feeling connected to something greater than oneself, and accomplishment that involves making progress toward goals, feeling capable to do daily activities, and having a sense of achievement. The results of the focus group study that was conducted indicate two additional dimensions of happiness emerged that include infrastructure that refers to the perception of staff on the maintenance and availability of the facilities in the organization and gratitude that refers to the levels of gratitude of staff on overall facilities and services offered of the organization. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018.
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