The Critical Factor of Workplace Wellbeing

Workplace wellbeing, post-pandemic, is now one of the strong elements for business success. The workplace will now have to give more to the employees, and neglecting wellbeing means that organisations will have to deal with increased turnover, reduced productivity, and less engagement. Real workplace wellbeing goes beyond offering yoga classes or mindfulness apps; rather, it's multi-faceted, dealing with mental health, the actual design of the physical workspace, social dynamics, and organisational culture.

Work: The Potential Source of Fulfilment and Fatigue

Work lies at the heart of the good life, yet it is both a source and destroyer of well-being. On the one hand, work gives a feeling of purpose, social contacts, and identity, so influencing the assessment of life as a whole. On the other hand, hostile work environments, underemployment, or job insecurity can negatively affect an employee's mental health even when they are in secure employment. As it was outlined by Professor Jan-Emmanuel De Neve in his work, employment brings great satisfaction into life, but only if the work atmosphere is good.

This is a crucial distinction, since employment in itself is not adequate. Whereas quite understandably unemployment might result in a sharp decline in well-being, the effect of being trapped in an ill-managed or poorly paid job is often more subtle. The issue here is not merely whether people are employed or not but whether they are working under conditions that would enable them to prosper.

The Dangers of Job-related Stress

We hear a lot about burnout these days, and for good reason. Stress in the workplace has become a nearly ubiquitous problem across professions. For example, healthcare workers not only develop emotional exhaustion but also physical burnout due to long hours of work that come with it. Research by Kristensen et al. (2005) underlined that even though such employees typically develop a strong sense of purpose, unrelenting stress stands in the way of well-being.

But it's not only in healthcare. It's also growing in almost each and every other sector too. Be it the pressure to meet the demands put by digitalisation in technology, the endless deadlines in media, or simply the grind of customer-facing roles, stress has become a serious issue. In fact, the World Health Organisation recognised stress in 2021 as a global concern, with increased stress by a group of workers from all professions, citing working hours, responsibilities, and less personal time. Organisations will keep on dealing with disengagement, reduced productivity, and high turnover unless these root causes are not addressed.

Wellbeing Understanding and Workplace Measurement

First and foremost, one of the big barriers to enhancing workplace well-being is knowing how to measure it. Organisations often confuse drivers—what causes well-being—and outcomes, which are the effects. For example, job satisfaction is an outcome, but it is influenced by drivers like fair pay, supportive management, and the quality of relationships at work. In fact, De Neve's research goes further and makes a very important differentiation that when we talk about well-being, we have to differentiate between these elements.

Take, for example, the Q12 Engagement Survey by Gallup. It found that social relationships in workplaces were among the most important features; having a close friend at work, for instance, now became a more reliable predictor for retention and job satisfaction than salary on its own. Yet, so many organisations do not bother building such human connections while relying solely on financial incentives, which is clearly wrong if long-term satisfaction is to be achieved.

Wellbeing and Productivity: An Intertwined Relationship

Well-being and productivity go hand in hand. It's one thing to know that employee well-being is important. It's quite another thing to appreciate how directly the latter impacts a company’s bottom line. Well-being and Productivity Research conducted by BT found a strong link between employee well-being and productivity: a one-point increase in well-being resulted in a 12% rise in weekly sales.

What is most interesting, however, is how this effect was most pronounced in jobs that relied on social and emotional intelligence: jobs entailing customer interaction, complex problem-solving, or teamwork. In other words, routine roles where employees performed simple order-taking did not benefit as much from a gain in well-being. This is understandable; routine tasks require less cognitive and emotional engagement, so the impact of well-being on performance becomes less pronounced. In the future, as companies increasingly use automation for routine jobs and reserve the really social and emotional work for humans, the importance of well-being will go up accordingly.

The Role of Architecture in Workplace Wellbeing

More than we may think, it matters where we work. It is not just a question of having an ergonomic chair or even of some greenery in the office. Workplaces both their physical and social design are fundamental to how people feel right down at work. For instance, natural light can buoy mood and productivity on a fine-weather day but is less salutary on grey days (Kristensen et al., 2005). More crucially, how workspaces are designed to foster human interaction—what we mean by social architecture—can make or break well-being.

Spaces that balance spaces of collaboration and focus with private spaces are ideal. Open-plan offices, once praised for fostering communication, are now widely criticised for their tendency toward distraction. The key is to find a balance between interaction and concentration. However, the more people flock to fully remote or hybrid work, the more businesses will have to think outside the box in building such a balance in virtual environments using tools that foster meaningful connections even when the teams are not physically together.

Beyond Wellness Programmes: The Need for Evidence-Based Interventions

Greater demands at work for wellbeing have led to responses from many organisations through wellness programmes. Yoga classes abound, as do mindfulness apps. But these nice-to-haves don't necessarily assure that the deeper, structural issues underlying wellbeing are being attended to. The World Wellbeing Movement includes companies like Unilever and HSBC, which have been involved with more evidence-based approaches, knowing that true wellbeing is something built into the fabric of how a business operates.

The Scandinavian model is instructive on that count. Happiness surveys around the world invariably place Denmark and Norway at the top of the happy list for its work-life balance policy, social welfare, and culturally supportive workplace. Shorter work weeks, generous parental leave, and a high degree of social trust mean employees are more satisfied and productive. These examples demonstrate very well that wellbeing initiatives cannot be an afterthought; they have to be part of the core of how businesses operate.

Business Case for Wellbeing

The economic rationale for investing in wellbeing is, therefore, clear. Companies that invest in the wellbeing of their employees outperform their competitors on financial outcomes. Research by De Neve and Krekel (2019) does find evidence of a strong connection between workplace wellbeing and financial success. High wellbeing companies have better returns on assets and profitability. Wellbeing-based portfolios, constructed based on such high scoring wellbeing companies, consistently outperform stock indices, while wellbeing becomes an important metric for investors.

Besides, the cost of neglect is prohibitively high: high turnover, absenteeism, and disengagement erode profits, whereas companies investing in wellbeing are rewarded through higher retention, performance, and loyalty. In today's competitive job market, where employees put wellbeing first, companies that fail to take action will fall behind.

Wellbeing is a must

It follows that workplace wellbeing is not a 'nice-to-have' but an imperative for the long term, sustainable performance of business. Quite rightly so, the evidence shows that happier workers are more productive, more engaged, and more loyal. True wellbeing, though, goes beyond superficial initiatives and needs an authentic commitment toward building supportive, balanced, and fulfilling work environments. Evidence-based interventions and learning from global best practices can help provide businesses with workplaces where employees will thrive and, in turn, drive their organisations to new heights.

References

De Neve, J., & Krekel, C. (2019). The World Happiness Report 2019. Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

Dolan, P., Peasgood, T., & White, M. (2008). Do we really know what makes us happy? Journal of Economic Psychology, 29(3), 94-122.

Gallup. (2024). Q12 Meta-Analysis Report. Gallup, Inc.

Kristensen, T. S., Hannerz, H., H?gh, A., & Borg, V. (2005). The Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire—a tool for the assessment and improvement of the psychosocial work environment. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, 31(6), 438-449.

World Health Organisation. (2021). Mental health in the workplace. WHO Press.

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