Worker Well-Being: What it Is, and how it Should Be Measured

Abstract

Worker well-being is a hot topic in organizations, consultancy and academia. However, too often, the buzz about worker well-being, enthusiasm for new programs to promote it and interest to research it, have not been accompanied by universal enthusiasm for scientific measurement. Aim to bridge this gap, we address three questions. To address the question ‘What is worker well-being?’, we explain that worker well-being is a multi-facetted concept and that it can be operationalized in a variety of constructs. We propose a four-dimensional taxonomy of worker well-being constructs to illustrate the concept’s complexity and classify ten constructs within this taxonomy. To answer the question ‘How can worker well-being constructs be measured?’, we present two aspects of measures: measure obtrusiveness (i.e., the extent to which obtaining a measure interferes with workers’ experiences) and measure type (i.e., closed question survey, word, behavioral and physiological). We illustrate the diversity of measures across our taxonomy and uncover some hitherto under-appreciated avenues for measuring worker well-being. Finally, we address the question ‘How should a worker well-being measure be selected?’ by discussing conceptual, methodological, practical and ethical considerations when selecting a measure. We summarize these considerations in a short checklist. It is our hope that with this study researchers – working in organizations, in academia or both – will feel more competent to find effective strategies for the measurement worker well-being and eventually make policies and choices with a better understanding of what drives worker well-being.

For whom and under what circumstances does email message batching work?

“…One can think here of including measurements of real-time emotions during email management, for example, through decoding video-taped facial expressions ( Blank et al, 2020 ), analyzing heart rate variability ( Mark et al, 2016 ) and using hair sample to derive cortisol levels ( Ludwigs et al, 2020 ) to measure stress. An overview of innovative ways to measure worker well-being is provided within Wijngaards et al (2021) .…”

“…Well-being was captured using two variables, emotional exhaustion and work engagement. We adopted this multi-dimensional approach, because email batching ( Kushlev and Dunn, 2015 ; Mano and Mesch, 2010 ; Jerejian et al, 2013 ) and organizational interventions more generally may not affect different aspects of well-being to a similar degree ( Briner and Walshe, 2015 ; Nielsen et al, 2010a ; Wijngaards et al, 2021 ). We selected emotional exhaustion, “a state of depleted work-related emotional and motivational resources” ( Halbesleben et al, 2013 , p. 493) and the main constituent of burnout ( Seidler et al, 2014 ), as research drawing upon resource-based theories have often treated it as an indicator of low energy and negative sentiment as a result of depleted self-regulatory resources ( Hobfoll et al, 2018 ; e.g., Lam et al, 2017 ; Lin et al, 2013 ; Wheeler et al, 2013 ).…”

Organizational Work-Home Culture and its Relations with the Work–Family Interface and Employees’ Subjective Well-being

“…According to Diener ( 2000 , 2013 ), subjective well-being is a broad construct that includes several correlated but distinct components, such as “life satisfaction (global judgment of one’s own life), satisfaction with important domains (e.g., work satisfaction), positive affect (experiencing of many pleasant emotions and moods), and low levels of negative affect (experiencing of unpleasant emotions and moods)” (Diener, 2000 , p. 34). Life satisfaction is a trait-like, context-free construct; affect represents people’s evaluations of the events that occur in their lives and comprises both trait-like and state-like components (Wijngaards et al, 2021 ). Therefore, subjective well-being can be defined as an individual’s cognitive and affective appraisals of his/her life and includes experiencing pleasant emotions, a low level of negative moods and a high degree of life satisfaction.…”

“…Considering the changes currently occurring in the conditions and nature of work, workers’ well-being should become a priority for many organisations. A significant number of studies, in fact, proved that workers’ well-being might be a predictor of organisational ethics, performance, absenteeism and voluntary turnover (Wijngaards et al, 2021 ).

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Praca a jakość życia Polaków - zmiany w okresie pandemii COVID-19

“…Odczuwanie szczęścia jest bezpośrednim doświadczaniem chwili  choć przyjemne, ostatecznie jest ulotne [Argyle, 2004]. Zdrowe, dostatnie życie z pewnością obejmuje chwile szczęścia, ale samo szczęście zwykle nie zapewnia satysfakcjonującego życia [Wijngaards, King i Burger, 2022].…”