Capturing wellbeing at work

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to report on a 12‐item measure developed by the authors, which assesses and monitors the wellbeing of employees across an organisation: Wellness at Work (W@W).

Design/methodology/approach

The W@W questionnaire for employees was delivered in parallel with a multi‐site survey undertaken by the Health and Safety Executive, during the development of their management standards. This paper reports its testing across a higher education workforce with 552 diverse participants.

Findings

This survey revealed that individuals with low or deteriorating “wellness” gave distinctive responses to questions about their future work, and enabled widespread discussion within the organisation about actions to improve employee wellbeing.

Originality/value

W@W is a practical measure for use in workplace settings.

Citation

Shephard, V. and Caan, W. (2012), "Capturing wellbeing at work", Journal of Public Mental Health, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 27-31. https://doi.org/10.1108/17465721211207284