How's Your Company's Hygiene?

If you didn't study I/O psychology you are probably thinking if or how your company's office or your co-workers smell. Though incorrect, you are not inaccurate. Just as we smell scents differently, we also smell things differently on an emotional level at work. 

Hygiene, in the context of working in an office environment for a company, refers to certain factors in the workplace that cause (or prevent) job satisfaction (i.e., work conditions, co-worker relations, policies and rules). It operates under the theory that job satisfaction (i.e., achievement, recognition, responsibility, personal growth)  and job dissatisfaction (i.e., work conditions, co-worker relations, policies and rules) act independently of each other.

It's important to note that satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not interdependent in work settings, unlike, say, marriage, where the absence of certain factors such as companionship, financial security, or romance can be quickly remedied by merely creating the presence of what's absent. 

In work environments the presence of what makes you happy can be negated by the presence of something else that makes you unhappy. For example, "good pay" can be quickly negated by the demand of excessively long work hours that impact the quality of one's life and relationships with one's family.  

The "sweet smell of success" in any work environment will be the alignment of known and personal factors to job satisfaction, and how closely they align with your company's hygiene. Simply put, being in a work environment that lacks these factors eventually stinks.