Report on Measuring and Improving Employee Well-being in the Workplace

This report delves into the multifaceted aspects of employee well-being within the workplace, examining various methods for its measurement and improvement. It begins by defining well-being and its significance, then explores key areas for measurement, including employee engagement, productivity, retention rates, and absenteeism. The report also discusses the impact of comfortable work environments, mindfulness practices, and work-life balance on employee well-being. Furthermore, it investigates insights from existing literature, analyzing past attempts by organizations to enhance employee well-being, such as flexible work arrangements and wellness programs, while also addressing the associated challenges and weaknesses of each approach. The report emphasizes the importance of addressing employee well-being for organizational success and provides practical strategies for fostering a healthy and productive work environment.

Introduction to Positive
Psychology

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Different areas of measuring well-being of area..........................................................................1
Insights from the literatures.........................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Well-being may be defined as experience of heath, prosperity and happiness which also
includes the having good mental health, high life satisfaction and with a sense of meaning or
purpose of life. Well-being in workplace refers to all the aspects of working life with high
quality working experience, physical safety, how workers feel about work environment or work
organisation which may lead to job satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Workers well-being is
considered as one of the key factors of determining the long term growth of an organisation.
Present report discusses different ways of measuring a well-being in workplace by focusing on
different approaches and tools of well-being. It also includes how previous researchers have
attempted to influence well-being setting with an explanation of what was done, what was
founded including their strengths and weaknesses of their attempts.
Different areas of measuring well-being of area
In recent years recognition of importance of an employee well-being in a workplace has
grown. Employee well-being is the key issue which companies are addressing, and they are
working to improve the employee well-being by keeping the employees motivated and happy
within the workplace. Happy workplace means productive workplace. Workplace well-being
covers mental and physical states. Mental well-being of employees includes relaxation of
employees, releasing of stress, providing adequate breakout areas for relaxation etc. Physical
well-being is equally important for employees as it covers the elements like temperature control,
natural day light and other things which have an impact on their body (Guest, 2017). It is
important for a firm to take care of employee well-being, in order to ensure high level of job
satisfaction and high productivity. Also, organisations need to measure the well-being of
employees which can be done is following ways:
Employee engagement: It is one of the best way for measuring the employee well-being in any
company. If employees are healthy and well it can result in the high level of employee
engagement with in the organisation. When employee feel happy, safe and healthy they will get
engaged with their work get busy in their work. More engaged the employees in a company
better is the employee well-being in an organisation. It has been viewed that employee who are
more engaged to their work are reported to have good well-being and are likely to miss the work
less than 30 percent.
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Productivity: When employees in a frim are feeling good and healthy it will surely increase the
productivity of the employees to higher levels. If employees are not feeling well they suffer from
low well-being it will result in lack of energy, depressed, feeling overwhelmed etc, and they do
not give best for their work. If employ is healthy, he or she will complete the task well on time
with high quality work (Healthy Performance, 2019). An organisation should track down the
performance of the employees on regular basis and should try to identify, are employees taking
necessary steps in order to meet their goals, are they constantly hitting the major check points
and are they able to achieve the small objectives along the way. companies need to turn to their
business analytics to uncover correlationships between employee well-being data and
organisational goals which will help the organisation to track their employee well-being.
Retention: Employee well-being play an important role in the retention of employees in an
organisation. If employees in any firm are healthy and happy they will not prefer to look for
other opportunities and will prefer to stick to one company. It is easy to measure the employee
retention rate which should be focused on the employee well-being. If any employee leaves the
organisation, he or she should be asked question related to their well-being in their exit
interviews like how much did the stress, ask about the company's climate or culture and
recommendations.
Absenteeism: It is one of the best and easiest way for measuring the employee well-being in any
organisation. If employees are healthy and fit it will decrease their absenteeism rate in a
company (Hakanen, Peeters & Schaufeli, 2018). Healthy employees like to work for the
organisation with healthy environment and which take care of the employees and work for their
safety and healthy working environment will decrease employee rate of absenteeism in company.
There are some issue related to measuring the employee well-being in an organisation
which is important for any firm to minimise in order ensure healthy well-being of employees.
Some key issue measuring employee well-being in an organisation is that using a proper tool for
measuring the employee well-being in a workplace, as all the tools can not provide an exact
information about the employee well-being. Like it is not easy to measure the stress level of
employee and can not understand their feelings and their mental health.
There are various approaches which can be implemented by the organisation in order to
improve the employee well-being in an organisation some of them are as:
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Creating comfortable work environment: More the comfortable work environment better will
be the employee well-being. An organisation should try to create a comfortable work
environment it will have a significant impact on employees health. It can be done by planting of
trees which will improve the quality of air, proper ventilation, creating a clutter free office. Also,
a company should try to decrease the stress of employees by performing fun activities, exercises,
job relaxations etc it will change the perception of employees about the company.
Introducing a concept of mindfulness: It is a simple form of meditation which encourages one
to focus on the moment which could improve the well-being of employees. By introducing a
concept of mindfulness it decreases the stress level of employees and could save the employee
medical cost of the organisation.
Realisation of importance of work-life balance: Workloads on the employees could result in
high level of stress among the employees which may effect their health negative way. On other
hand encouraging the healthy work-life balance could improve employee well-being. As per the
research 44 percent of employees believe that flexible work schedules can increase the happiness
in the workplace as it will result a balance in work life and high job satisfaction and will make
them emotionally strong (Alan, 2017).
Supporting social outreach programs: Providing services to local communities could result in
satisfied customers as such programs help in building trust among the employees, develops an
effective connection between company and locals. Community out reach results in decreasing
the stress level and spreads happiness among the employees which improves the well-being of
the employees in an organisation.
Encouraging staff to exercise: Exercises will surely increase the well-being of the employees in
organisation, if employees are encouraged to exercise on regular basis it will decrease employees
stress level and will make them fit and healthy physically. Companies can organise morning
exercises and can also encourage the employee to cycle to work which will surely improve
employees well-being.
There are also some issues related to these approaches why applying them in an
organisation (Donohoe, & Kelloway 2016). One of major issue is lack of interest of employees,
many employees proclaim their interest in improving their health but when time of taking part
comes their interest vanishes. So, in order to gear up their interest, company should advertise
their programs and should also highlight the benefits of the programs to employees. Even
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employers to develop interest of employees offer incentives or decreased health insurance rates
etc. Another issue for implementing these approaches is undefined purpose. If workers do not
understand the purpose or goals of the wellness programs, the will be less participation of the
employees in the programs. Majority of employees perceive such approaches as approaches of
loosing weight. So, company should try to create well defined goals which will clear the concept
of wellness programs which are to be implemented in the organisation. So, it is important for a
firm to overcome these issue in order to improve the well-being of employees in an organisation
which can be beneficial for the employees and for employers as well.
Insights from the literatures
As per the views of Sonnentag, & Schiffner, (2019) employee well-being in any
workplace was over looked by every business but it has been proven by the number of researches
that employee well being has impact on the efficiency and productivity of the company. Well-
being is about the personal happiness i.e. feeling good in the firm and having high level of job
satisfaction. There are many studies which have confirmed the benefits of employee well-being
in the organisation. Various companies in past realised that employee well-being plays an
important role for the success and efficiency of a company, so there were several attempts which
were made by the organisation in to improve employee well-being in their companies. One of the
most common step which was taken by the firms was allowing flexible work place. As
employees in past had to face heavy workloads and were going through stress which resulted in
the depression that had impact on their well-being. So, various companies offered flexible
working environment so employees get fit to their job as per their needs. It also included flexible
start and finish times in order to look after their parents or children and also allowed the
employees to work from home once in week. Also, employers increased the breaks and increased
their relaxation time. Outcome of this attempt was positive for the organisation, it increased the
employees job satisfaction and level of productivity. This attempt also acted as a tool for
motivating them to improve their performance. One of the major outcome of this attempt was it
significantly improved the employee well-being in the organisation's workplace. On the other
hand it was argued by de Jong & et.al. one of major weaknesses of providing flexible working
hours was that it resulted in the non-seriousness of employees in their work which has reflected
from their behaviour. Another issue related to this attempt was that it was suitable for some
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employees roles like client or customer facing situations, where the clients and customers have to
face problems for achieving a quick responses.
Another major attempt for improving employee well-being in a company was illustrated
by Ilies, Aw & Pluut (2015) they stated that organisations in order to improve well-being
started to develop a culture of wellness in their companies. A culture of wellness in workplace
environment helped the employees to practice healthy behaviours in their workplace. Any
company which had a strong wellness culture had inspired people to adopt healthy habits and
also rewarded the employees for their change towards healthy behaviours. By creating the
culture of wellness in a company made employees feel happy, increased their morale, increased
the level of job satisfaction and their productivity. It also helped employers to maintain a strong
culture of wellness in a company as they offered healthy nutritional choices, encouraging
physical activities, reducing workplace stress and also rewarding healthy behaviours to
employees. There were many positive outcomes from this attempt which improved the well-
being of the employees in the organisation, by developing the culture of wellness made
employees fit and healthy which also improved the efficiency of a firm. But there were also
some issue associated with it, major issue was resistance from the employees. Resistance from
employees was mainly due to lack of awareness or undefined purpose to them. Employee in past
did want to accept the change easily unless and until proper defined purpose was defined to
them. So, this was weaknesses of this attempt from the organisation in past from which
companies are overcoming in present due to proper change management strategies.
On the hand it has been critiqued by Huang & et.al. (2016) another attempt which was
made by the organisations in past for improving the well-being of employees in companies was
encouraging the friendships with their team mates and with their leaders. It was considered to be
one of the best wellness strategy for improving well-being of employees in a firm. Employee
were encouraged to develop friendships with the teams and in workplaces as it was based on the
concept that friends coordinate tasks more effectively and there will be less stress faced by
employees during a task. Working with friends does not only make employees feel happy and
good as they can produce better results for the organisations. Also, by developing a friendship
employees felt safe, supported and appreciated in their workplaces which improved their
performance and productivity and also decreased their stress level significantly. There were may
issues or weaknesses associated with this attempt like developing friendship within the teams
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resulted increase in informality with the organisation and also resulted in the non-seriousness
among the employees. Also, it vanished the gaps between superiors and subordinates which
negatively affected the organisational structure or management levels in the management. Some
there would arise a conflict between the friends it may affect their well-being and increase the
stress or leaving a job. So, these are the weaknesses associated with this attempt which were
faced by the organisations in the past.
As illustrated by Yragui & et.al.(2017) one of the major attempt for improving employee
well-being made by the organisations in the past was to encourage the employees to focus on
their physical health, as physical health of the employee is the key factor for overall well-being
of the employees in an organisation. companies encouraged the employees to take practical steps
and initiatives, which an employee should implement for their betterment of their health and
health of the team. It also sometimes included inviting nutritionists or general physicians in a
workplace in order to check the health of employees. Outcomes of this attempt where it changes
the psychological perception of employees in the company, as employees felt that they were not
valued by a company. This attempt increased the value of employees in a firm and also improved
their well-being as they were happy with the organisation. The only weaknesses of this attempt
was lack of interest from the employees due to lack of time during the working hours. Also, they
felt that it won't benefit their well-being and health, so they least participated in such programs.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above essay that, there are various ways of measuring
employee well-being in a workplace, which can help the management to formulates strategies for
improving health of employees in the organisation. Present essay also concludes that a company
can focus on various approaches for promoting a well-being of employees in a company. It is
important for a firm to overcome the issue or weaknesses which are faced in the workplaces in
measuring and improving employee well-being in an organisation. It can also be concluded that
it is important for a company to take care of employee well-being in their workplaces in order to
increase their productivity, efficiency, profitability and to increase the rate of employee retention
for the organisation. Also, a company with high quality of employee well-being is beneficial for
both employee and for employer as well.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
de Jong, T and et.al. (2016). The impact of restructuring on employee well-being: a systematic
review of longitudinal studies. Work & Stress, 30(1), 91-114.
Donohoe, M., & Kelloway, E. K. (2016). Transformational leadership training for managers:
effects on employee well-being. In Creating Healthy Workplaces. (pp. 231-248).
Routledge.
Guest, D. E. (2017). Human resource management and employee well‐being: Towards a new
analytic framework. Human Resource Management Journal. 27(1). 22-38.
Hakanen, J. J., Peeters, M. C., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2018). Different types of employee well-
being across time and their relationships with job crafting. Journal of occupational
health psychology. 23(2). 289.
Huang, L. C and et.al. (2016). High performance work systems, employee well-being, and job
involvement: An empirical study. Personnel Review, 45(2), 296-314.
Ilies, R., Aw, S. S., & Pluut, H. (2015). Intraindividual models of employee well-being: What
have we learned and where do we go from here?. European Journal of Work and
Organizational Psychology. 24(6). 827-838.
Sonnentag, S., & Schiffner, C. (2019). Psychological Detachment from Work during Nonwork
Time and Employee Well-Being: The Role of Leader’s Detachment. The Spanish
journal of psychology. 22.
Yragui, N. L and et.al.(2017). Linking workplace aggression to employee well-being and work:
The moderating role of family-supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB). Journal of
business and psychology. 32(2). 179-196.
Online
Alan, D. K. (2017). 5 Ways to Improve Employee Well-Being. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://www.mededwebs.com/blog/well-being-index/5-ways-to-improve-employee-
well-being>.
Healthy Performance. (2019). [Online]. Available Through:
<https://www.healthyperformance.co.uk/how-you-can-measure-wellbeing-at-work/>.
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