SIVH Effect: Long-Term Resilience vs. Short-Term Well-Being in Employees
Most HR evaluations focus on short-term well-being (happiness, job satisfaction) rather than assessing employees’ long-term resilience to crises. Psychological resilience studies indicate that an employee’s ability to adapt to stress is a stronger predictor of workplace stability than current well-being (APA, 2021). Employees who appear stable under normal conditions may collapse when faced with unexpected stress, leading to burnout, absenteeism, or performance failure.
Over the years, the Deep Mind team at SelfFusion has tested multiple HR-related solutions aimed at assessing employees’ mental states and overall "happiness." Through this extensive research, we have identified why focusing on workplace happiness as an end goal is a flawed strategy. In this article, we explore these insights in detail, outlining SelfFusion’s approach to employee resilience.
Why Aiming for "Happiness" at the Workplace Is Sub-Optimal?
Comparing Workplace Happiness to SIVH (Structured Internal Value Hierarchies) Alignment with Organizational Values
The idea of fostering happiness at work has gained traction in modern HR strategies. However, scientific research suggests that prioritizing happiness as an ultimate goal is fundamentally sub-optimal compared to ensuring that employees have a clearly structured internal value hierarchy (SIVH) that sufficiently aligns with the company’s value system.
A well-defined SIVH provides employees with a deeper sense of meaning and purpose, which is significantly more predictive of long-term engagement, productivity, and—most importantly—resilience. In contrast, an overemphasis on workplace happiness often diverts attention from evaluating the quality of employees’ internal value hierarchies. This, in turn, creates a dangerous blind spot: when a crisis arises, employees whose value structures have not been tested and clarified may be unable to cope with mental stress, leading to rapid declines in performance and psychological stability.
Scientific Proof That Aiming for Workplace Happiness Is Sub-Optimal
1. Happiness Is Ephemeral and Context-Dependent
Studies in affective psychology demonstrate that happiness is highly situational and transitory (Lyubomirsky, 2005). It fluctuates based on temporary external factors such as a good conversation with a colleague, a salary increase, or a successful project. Repeated observations confirm that happiness is short-lived and largely dependent on an individual’s baseline expectations, which are shaped by past experiences, social comparisons, and subjective perceptions of "normality."
To illustrate, consider a child who is initially thrilled when paid for cleaning their room. Over time, the expectation escalates, requiring ever-higher payments to maintain the same level of motivation. Similarly, indulging a child with candy for good behavior leads to unhealthy dependency and an unsustainable expectation of constant rewards.
The same principle applies in the workplace. Trying to engineer employee happiness through continuous external incentives is inherently unsustainable—what once increased satisfaction quickly becomes the new normal, requiring even greater interventions to maintain the effect.
2. The Inevitability of Hedonic Adaptation
Research on Hedonic Adaptation (Brickman & Campbell, 1971) demonstrates that individuals quickly return to a baseline level of happiness, regardless of positive or negative changes in their environment. This means that happiness-driven workplace initiatives tend to have diminishing returns over time.
This phenomenon is not a cultural or generational trend but rather a deeply ingrained evolutionary mechanism. Human beings are biologically wired to adapt to improvements—whether financial, social, or environmental—making the pursuit of happiness through external means a losing strategy in the long run.
3. The Consequence of Priming Employees for Happiness: Inability to Handle Crisis
An equally significant risk is that employees conditioned to prioritize happiness struggle when faced with adversity. If an organization primes employees to expect a consistently positive and rewarding experience, they may lack the psychological resilience to cope with inevitable workplace crises.
This is especially critical in industries that experience high-pressure situations, rapid change, or economic downturns. Employees who are habitually shielded from stress and provided with constant reassurance may be more vulnerable to burnout, disengagement, or even abrupt resignations when confronted with unexpected challenges.
🔹 Key Insight:
Since happiness is fleeting and dependent on external conditions, it cannot serve as a stable foundation for workplace engagement. Employees require a deeper, internal structure that does not fluctuate with daily experiences. In most cases, it is impossible to establish a singular higher aim without first clarifying Structured Internal Value Hierarchies (SIVH).
2. Happiness Lacks Direction Without a Clear Purpose
Viktor Frankl, in Man’s Search for Meaning (1946), argues that happiness should not be pursued directly but rather emerges as a byproduct of meaning. At SelfFusion, this has become increasingly evident based on empirical observations and data-driven insights. Happiness, when treated as an end in itself, is not a sustainable aim—among other reasons, because it leads to rapid psychological exhaustion.
Simply put, when an individual experiences prolonged happiness without a higher guiding aim, they eventually become aware of the void that such a state generates. Without a structured internal value hierarchy (SIVH) to provide clarity, this void is typically filled by short-term, pleasure-seeking behaviors—leading to distraction rather than long-term fulfillment.
Scientific Evidence: Meaning Over Pleasure
Studies in eudaimonic well-being (Ryan & Deci, 2001) confirm that pursuing intrinsic goals—such as purpose, mastery, and meaning—leads to greater life satisfaction than simply seeking hedonic pleasure.
Additionally, Self-Determination Theory (SDT) (Deci & Ryan, 1985) identifies competence, relatedness, and autonomy as core drivers of human motivation—not fleeting emotional states like happiness. This aligns fully with our approach at SelfFusion: sustainable engagement is only possible when employees operate within a clearly structured value system. Without an internalized hierarchy of meaning, the pursuit of happiness becomes directionless and self-defeating.
🔹 Key Insight:
Aiming for happiness at work is inherently directionless. What truly sustains employees is a clear purpose that aligns with their structured internal values. The constant pursuit of happiness leads to fragmentation, distraction, and ultimately a sense of meaninglessness. In contrast, an anchored, singular aim—rooted in SIVH—creates focus, resilience, and a long-term sense of purpose within the limits of human capacity.
3. Value Alignment Predicts Long-Term Engagement and Resilience
Research in Organizational Psychology confirms that value congruence between employees and the company is a strong predictor of engagement, job satisfaction, and lower turnover rates (Edwards & Cable, 2009). Despite this, most companies—whether through HR L&D specialists or direct oversight from founders and board members—make a critical mistake: they merely define corporate values without ensuring their hierarchical structuring or actual alignment with employees.
The Fallacy of Horizontal Value Structures
In most organizations, company values are identical to those of competitors and self-evident to the point of redundancy. Companies claim to be "innovative, professional, client-centric"—but no company would ever claim the opposite. The mere act of defining values in a horizontally structured manner does very little for actual alignment.
At SelfFusion, our central premise is clear: values must be structured hierarchically, both within the individual (SIVH) and the organization. Without this internal order, employees lack a structured mental framework for prioritizing behaviors, making decisions, and coping with workplace stress.
Cognitive Dissonance and Its Impact on Performance
Employees who experience cognitive dissonance between their internal values and company objectives exhibit:
Higher stress,
Lower motivation, and
Increased burnout (Festinger, 1957).
Although this research dates back decades, its validity remains unchanged. Many HR programs grossly underestimate the difficulty of realigning deep-seated values. While shifts in SIVH are possible, they are significantly more complex and nuanced than many HR solutions suggest. Furthermore, cognitive dissonance cannot simply be "resolved" externally—it is an internal process that must be addressed through careful structural analysis and strategic realignment.
Psychological Contract Fulfillment and Sustainable Commitment
The psychological contract theory (Rousseau, 1995) demonstrates that when employees feel that their deeply held values are recognized and aligned with their work, they exhibit higher commitment and performance. However, this should be seen as a two-sided phenomenon:
Value alignment creates a foundation for long-term cooperation between the employee and the organization.
Value misalignment serves as an early and highly reliable predictor of future conflict—the only question is when it will manifest.
While value alignment is crucial, merely identifying shared values is not enough. To achieve real predictive power, values must also be structured hierarchically according to their relative importance within the individual and the company.
🔹 Key Insight:
Rather than focusing on short-term happiness, HR leaders should prioritize clarifying the internal value structures (SIVH) of key employees and ensuring they align with the company’s hierarchical value framework. This approach creates a stable psychological foundation that fosters long-term motivation, resilience, and high performance.
4. Misaligned Internal Values Lead to Workplace Dysfunction
A 2021 study in the Journal of Organizational Behavior (Kristof-Brown et al.) found that value misalignment is one of the strongest predictors of workplace disengagement. This is not just a theoretical issue—it is a practical reality that manifests as resistance, internal conflict, and ultimately organizational breakdown.
The severity of value misalignment should not be underestimated. It is not merely a minor inefficiency or a personality mismatch—it is a fundamental structural problem that, if ignored, can escalate into:
Ex-employee retaliation,
Class-action lawsuits, and
Active efforts to sabotage the organization (“employee terrorism”).
When employees lack internal value clarity, it leads to:
Conflicting priorities, which create frustration and inefficiency,
Decision fatigue, as individuals struggle to prioritize actions, and
Team dysfunction, stemming from mismatched expectations and motivations.
The Central Role of Trust in Team Performance
At SelfFusion, we have observed a direct correlation between trust and value hierarchy alignment. Multiple studies confirm that one of the most predictive metrics of long-term team success is trust—and trust, in turn, is highly dependent on the overlap of structured internal value hierarchies (SIVH) among team members.
Without this hierarchical alignment, teams experience:
Decision paralysis, as employees lack an internal framework for prioritization,
Burnout, from overextending on tasks misaligned with their deeper motivations, and
Unstable performance, as employees seek external validation rather than intrinsic motivation.
While these factors already reduce productivity, the true risk of SIVH misalignment becomes evident during crisis situations. When unexpected challenges—whether external shocks (economic downturns, layoffs) or personal crises (illness, family tragedy)—strike, employees without a structured internal hierarchy of values are far less capable of maintaining stability. Without a clear framework, chaos is inevitable.
🔹 Key Insight:
Employees with well-defined, structured internal value hierarchies (SIVH) are significantly better at navigating crises and high-pressure situations without emotional exhaustion. A stable internal framework provides the foundation for long-term resilience and sustained performance.
5. Trust and Team Performance Depend on SIVH Overlap, Not Happiness
Trust formation is one of the most critical determinants of team performance (Mayer et al., 1995). Research consistently shows that trust is a direct function of SIVH (Structured Internal Value Hierarchy) overlap between team members and the organization. When employees' internal value structures align sufficiently with those of their colleagues and the company, trust naturally emerges. Without this trust, even the highest levels of competence among key employees have a drastically reduced impact on overall team performance.
This correlation between trust and value alignment has been repeatedly confirmed in various studies. In contrast, happiness does not predict trust formation. Instead, research shows that shared purpose and deep value alignment create long-term trust in teams (Weimar et al., 2017). Another study that strongly supports this finding is "The Influence of Teamwork Quality on Software Team Performance" (2017)—which we have analyzed in detail in another article on SelfFusion.com.
Furthermore, empirical evidence indicates that:
Teams with high trust but lower short-term competence consistently outperform teams with high competence but low trust (Druskat & Wolff, 2001).
At SelfFusion, we have taken this analysis further by examining the direct correlation between SIVH overlap and trust formation, providing even more granular insights into the mechanics of team cohesion and performance.
🔹 Key Insight:
Happiness is not a predictor of high-performing teams. Long-term trust and deep internal value alignment are the true driving forces behind team success and resilience.
Conclusion: HR Should Prioritize SIVH Over Temporary Happiness
Relying on happiness as a core HR strategy is fundamentally flawed—it is too fragile, situational, and unreliable, driven by external factors and short-term adaptation effects. In contrast, Structured Internal Value Hierarchies (SIVH) provide a stable psychological framework that fosters long-term resilience, intrinsic motivation, and deep trust formation within teams.
Companies that prioritize value alignment between employees and the organization consistently outperform those that focus solely on short-term well-being initiatives. The key to sustainable engagement and performance is not momentary happiness but clarity of purpose—ensuring that employees operate within a value structure that aligns with their internal drivers and the company’s core mission.
🔹 Final Insight:
Instead of focusing on "making employees happy," HR leaders should clarify and align employee value structures to create long-term meaning, engagement, and resilience—which, paradoxically, leads to deeper and more sustainable well-being than chasing happiness directly.
