The Science Behind Employee Happiness And Organizational Performance

“Confusion often abounds as to what workplace wellbeing actually is and what it entails,” explain the authors of the new book, Why Workplace Wellbeing Matters: The Science Behind Employee Happiness and Organizational Performance. 

“Workplace wellbeing is how we feel at work and about our work,” share Jan-Emmanuel De Neve and George Ward. “It has evaluative, affective, and eudaimonic components. These may sound complicated but are actually very straightforward.” 

Evaluative workplace wellbeing refers to how we think about our jobs. It is an overall judgment, an assessment about how things are going, and it is typically measured by job satisfaction. 

Affective wellbeing refers to how we actually feel on a day-to-day basis while we are at work. It is an emotional or hedonic experience, and it can involve both positive and negative emotions. 

Eudaimonic wellbeing is about how much of a sense of purpose we get out of our work. 

The authors also point out that wellness and wellbeing are too often conflated. They explain that wellness is somewhat more nebulous as a concept and is often defined more in terms of the wellness programs designed to promote it. 

Within the three parts of the book, the authors offer a framework for how businesses can approach and improve workplace wellbeing. Drawing on extensive large-scale data—including the world's largest data set on employee wellbeing, gathered in partnership with the jobs platform Indeed—the book reveals the remarkable ways in which wellbeing at work varies across workers, occupations, companies, and industries.

The authors present new, evidence-based insights into the origins of workplace wellbeing and how businesses can enhance the employee experience. Their research demonstrates that improving wellbeing can boost productivity, aid in talent retention and recruitment, and ultimately improve financial performance. 

Two of the key insights from the research conducted and shared within the book include: 

• The most important driver of wellbeing is not pay. Instead, it is actually a sense of belonging. 
• Being a full-time, permanent employee delivers the strongest sense of workplace wellbeing. 

Most of us spend a third of our waking lives at work. Work shapes our schedules, relationships, identities, and economies—but is it actually making us happy? This crucial question is explored in depth within this timely, compelling and book. 

 

George Ward 

Ward shares these additional insights with us: 

Question: You studied six key groups of drivers of workplace wellbeing, namely: development and security; human relationships at work; independence and flexibility; variety and fulfillment; earning and benefits; as well as risk, health, and safety. Which are the most important? 

Ward: While many factors are essential for workplace wellbeing—including fair wages and consistent scheduling—our research clearly shows that human relationships at work stand out as especially influential. Good relationships with managers and coworkers form the foundation for employees feeling valued, supported—and, ultimately, happy at and about their work. 

Question: How, overall, should business leaders strategically use the research findings and teachings in the book? 

Ward: Leaders should approach workplace wellbeing not as a peripheral issue, but as a strategic imperative directly tied to organizational performance. This involves systematically measuring wellbeing and embedding it into daily management practices and strategic decisions. 

Question: What is the best next step for a leader who after reading your book wants to improve wellbeing in their workplace? 

Ward: The best first step for leaders is to objectively assess the current state of wellbeing within their organization. Using validated measures of job satisfaction, stress, purpose, and happiness, leaders can identify key areas needing improvement. They should then translate these insights into targeted interventions that directly address the most influential drivers of workplace wellbeing.

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 Jan-Emmanuel De Neve is Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science at the University of Oxford, where he directs the Wellbeing Research Centre. His research, published in top academic journals, was included among "The Management Ideas That Mattered Most" by Harvard Business Review. He is an editor of the World Happiness Report and coauthor of the preeminent textbook on wellbeing science. 

George Ward earned his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is currently the Mary Ewart Junior Research Fellow in Economics at Somerville College, University of Oxford. He coauthored The Origins of Happiness: The Science of Well-Being over the Life Course and has published widely on the topic of human wellbeing in leading academic journals. 

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.