Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2017 02 - SHRM-SIOP Employee Well-Being
2017 02 - SHRM-SIOP Employee Well-Being
Copyright 2017
Society for Human Resource Management and Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology
The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of any agency of the U.S.
government nor are they to be construed as legal advice.
Seth Kaplan, Ph.D., is an associate professor of industrial/ organizational
(I/O) psychology at George Mason University. His research focuses on
understanding and trying to improve the subjective experience of work. He
has published papers in this area in journals, including Psychological Bulletin,
Journal of Applied Psychology and Journal of Management, and has received
funding from sources such as the Army Research Institue. He currently is on
the editorial board of four journals and is the director of the George Mason
I/O Ph.D. program. In addition, he served as the head of the Government Relations Team for
the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP). He earned his B.S. from the
University of Florida and his master’s and doctorate degrees in I/O psychology from Tulane
University.
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ABSTRACT
A wealth of literature from industrial/organizational psychology and other fields indicates that
the well-being of employees influences various individual job outcomes (e.g., attendance and
productivity) and nonwork
non-workoutcomes
outcomes(e.g.,
(e.g.,disease
diseaseand
andmortality).
mortality).ThisThiswhite
whitepaper
paper
summarizes these results butand also
also goes
goes beyond
beyond them,
them, highlighting
highlighting less
less well-known
well-known findings.
findings.
We show that employee well-being has broadera broader impacts
impact,such
suchasasononthe
theschool
schoolperformance
performanceof
children
of children
of of
working
working
parents
parents
andand
onon
thethe
American
U.S. economy
economyas aaswhole.
a whole.Moreover,
Moreover,
wewediscuss
discuss
that
that work,
work, whenwhen
organized
organized
and managed
and managedin certain
in certain
ways,ways,
can produce
can produce
various
various
positive
positive
individual
individual
and societal
andbenefits.
societalThe
benefits.
paper The
closes
paper
withcloses
a discussion
with a discussion
of how governmental
of how governmental
and and
organizational policies can promote well-being and, in turn, bring about these gains.
Work is a fundamental aspect of life. Employees in the U.S. workforce spend much of their
waking hours at work—more hours than in most industrialized countries (Organisation for
average of 7.6 hours on the days they worked, including 5.6 hours on weekend working days
(U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015). For women, in particular, the percentage of time spent
doing paid work has nearly doubled since 1965 (Sayer, 2005). Given the amount of time the
U.S. workforce spends working, it is not surprising that work relates significantly to overall
well-being and life satisfaction (Bowling, Eschleman & Wang, 2010). Work also can represent a
primary source of identity, status, daily structure and social relationships (Jahoda, 1982). A vast
3
The purpose of this white paper is to provide an overview of the scientific literature on
hope to (1) broaden the discussion of the influence of work and (2) stimulate consideration of
this end, we highlight the evidence indicating that work can foster negative or positive
experiences and can hurt or help job-related and more general well-being. Following from this
lawmakers to consider in attempting to improve well-being and, in turn, bring about individual,
Although there are many conceptualizations of well-being in the academic literature and
popular press, we define it broadly, as the totality of one’s emotional experiences and
subjective evaluations of one’s work and life circumstances (see Diener, 1984, for a similar
conceptualization).
As noted above, given the amount of time employees in the U.S. spend at work and the
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survey conducted by the American Psychological Association (APA), 60% of Americans report
Association, 2015). Furthermore, according to the same survey, work contributes to stress
more than family issues or health (with money being number one contributor).
Work-related stress, anxiety and depression produce pervasive problems for individuals,
organizations and society at large. Turning first to the effects of work-related stress on
individual health, a large body of literature from various fields (e.g., industrial/organizational
psychology, human resource management, public health and medicine) documents that job-
related stress has several significant health-related consequences (e.g., Chandola et al., 2008;
based on 228 studies are especially telling (Goh, Workplace stress contributes
to at least 120,000 deaths per
Pfeffer & Zenios, 2014). According to this review, year—more than the number
workplace stress contributes to at least 120,000
of deaths from diabetes,
Alzheimer’s or influenza.
deaths per year. Furthermore, with respect to specific
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stressors, the authors reported that 1) job insecurity (i.e., fears about losing one’s job)
increased the odds of reporting poor health by 50%; 2) longer work hours increased mortality
by almost 20%; and 3) highly demanding jobs raised the odds of a physician-diagnosed illness
by 35%. As one of the authors notes, “The deaths are comparable to the fourth- and fifth-
largest causes of death in the country—heart disease and accidents . . . It’s more than deaths
As can be seen in Table 2, the well-being of the workforce also has dramatic bottom-line
implications for organizations and the economy as a whole. The figure below presents a simple
depiction of how employee well-being affects these more distal financial outcomes.
Behavioral Factors
- Alcohol and drug abuse
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Table 2. Organizational and Societal Financial Impacts of Employee Well-Being
Workplace Stress…
Accounts for up to $190 billion in health care costs and increases the nation’s
health care costs by 5% to 8% (Goh et al., 2015).
Contributes to 40% of all job turnover (Hoel, Sparks & Cooper, 2001).
Primary Takeaway: Work is consistently rated among the top two or three sources of
stress among individuals in the U.S. This stress contributes to psychological (e.g., depression,
anxiety), physical (e.g., cardiovascular disease, obesity) and behavioral (e.g., increased alcohol
use) problems. In turn, these problems result in decreased organizational productivity and
retention and in higher health care costs. The ultimate downstream effects of this impaired
psychological well-being occur at the national level, where U.S. efficiency and productivity
As mentioned above, most employed adults spend a significant amount of their time awake
performing a job in a work setting away from their families. Research from fields such as
industrial/organizational psychology now clearly indicates that excessive work demands and
negative workplace experiences spill over into family life, adding substantial stress to the lives
of all family members and decreasing family well-being (e.g., Bianchi, Casper & King 2005;
Hammer et al. 2005; Kelly et al. 2008; Korabik, Lero & Whitehead 2008; Kossek & Lambert
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2005; Major, Klein & Ehrhart 2002).
One way that employees’ well-being affects their families is in terms of children’s well-being.
Several findings demonstrate this impact. For instance, a study of fathers demonstrated that
(Stewart & Barling, 1996). A similar study found that job stress was related to mothers
exhibiting less warmth and acceptance toward their adolescents, who, in turn, were more
likely to demonstrate problem behavior (Galambos, Sears, Almeida, & Kolaric, 1995). More
recently, Johnson and Allen (2013) reported that mothers with greater work demands and less
job control have children who are less physically active and healthy (Johnson & Allen, 2013).
Furthermore, children appear to recognize and lament the job-related stress and tiredness that
Worker well-being also affects the quality of other interpersonal relationships outside of work,
such as marriage. For instance, Beatty (1996) found that stress at work is associated with
reduced marital satisfaction. More recently, researchers have shown that work-to-life conflict
is negatively related to experienced marital satisfaction, family satisfaction and life satisfaction
(Allen, Herst, Bruck, & Sutton, 2000). Even more troubling are findings suggesting that spouses
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who are in certain occupations (Melzer, 2002) and those who experience stressful work events
are more likely to physically abuse their partners (Barling & Rosenbaum, 1986).
the experienced quality of family time (Major, Klein & Ehrhart, 2002). Furthermore, a recent
study revealed that more than half of employees surveyed feel that the need to respond
immediately to electronic communications (e.g., texts and e-mails from supervisors and
clients) is ruining their family meals (Workfront, 2015). Other studies show that greater job
demands and related stress increase work-family conflict (Kossek, Lautsch, & Eaton, 2006;
Thompson & Prottas, 2006 ) and that employees who experience more job stress tend to
spend more time away from their families, be less involved in family matters and have less
Primary Takeaway: The pernicious effects of excessive work demands and resultant
stress extend beyond employees, affecting their families as well. Such demands and stress
can contribute to various negative consequences, such as marital and family discord,
parents being less available for children and problematic child behavior, among others.
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Work as a Source of Well-Being
Having just explored how work can harm well-being, we now consider the evidence suggesting
that work, structured in a particular way, has the potential to instead facilitate well-being.
Although work can contribute to various individual, family and societal problems, it need not.
In fact, the evidence indicates that work can have various benefits beyond just economic ones.
As discussed in the final section of this paper, whether work is primarily a source of impaired
First, important to emphasize is that, although the experience of work can and should be
improved, having a job (versus being unemployed) relates to a host of well-being benefits (e.g.,
McKee-Ryan, Song, Wanberg & Kinicki, 2005). For instance, compared with those who are
Notably, these effects are not simply due to the financial benefits of work (e.g., Paul & Batinic,
2010). Studies show that work can benefit even those who do not need to work for financial
reasons. These potential well-being gains accrue because work can help satisfy several
psychological needs, as shown in Table 3 (Jahoda, 1982; Paul & Batinic, 2010).
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Table 3. Nonfinancial Benefits of Working
The workplace may be especially conducive to helping individuals meet some of these
emotional states, work can be a source of positive emotional states, such as gratitude (e.g., for
one’s colleagues) and growth. This matters because evidence indicates that well-being is not
simply the absence of negative experiences like stress and anxiety. A necessary condition for
psychological thriving is the frequent occurrence of positive experiences, not just the lack of
These positive experiences then translate into individual and organizational benefits.
Evidence shows, for instance, that increased happiness is associated with higher productivity
and that more frequent workplace positive emotional experiences relate to higher
performance ratings and more organizational citizenship and helping behavior (Lyubomirsky,
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Also, from a societal perspective, working can contribute to
More frequent positive
community well-being through practices such as volunteering. emotional experiences
in the workplace relate
Recent support for this claim comes from the U.S. Bureau of Labor
to higher performance
Statistics (2016), which reports that employed people are more ratings and more
workplace helping
likely to be volunteers than are unemployed individuals or people behaviors.
who are not in the labor force. Furthermore, evidence suggest that
corporate volunteer programs increase the number of volunteers (Peterson, 2004), potentially
resulting in extended benefits such as the community organizations being able to provide
Primary Takeaway: Although the experience of work can be aversive, it need not be. In
addition to providing income, work also can provide various well-being benefits. More
positive work-related emotions and evaluations then can lead to outcomes such as greater
productivity and more workplace helping behavior. In the section that follows, we provide
to help facilitate these positive experiences and, in turn, the consequences they help create.
In sum, work can be a source of both negative and positive experiences and well-being.
Ultimately, the well-being of employees and the downstream effects for them, their families,
their organizations and the nation as a whole largely reflects governmental policy and
organizational practices. That is, government bodies as well as public and private organizations
can influence these broader, more distal outcomes by influencing the well-being of U.S.
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employees. In this sense, work, and the organizations where such work occurs, can be seen as
Given these conclusions, we offer several practical recommendations for how policy
makers can improve workplace well-being and, in so doing, positively affect society.
Aligning Policies with Scientific Findings on the Promotion and Benefits of Well-Being
employees staying home when sick), with estimates that between 18% and 61% of employer
Research suggests that organizations could reduce presenteeism by offering paid sick
leave and by avoiding disciplinary action for absenteeism (Johns, 2010). Thus, we encourage
organizations and lawmakers to consider policies to promote paid sick leave and also
Americans use far fewer of their vacation days than they did in past decades. According to a
recent survey of 1,500 Americans, the majority of U.S. workers do not use all of their allotted
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vacation days, and 42% did not use even a single allotted vacation day in 2014 (Skift, 2015).
Furthermore, the U.S. is the only industrialized country that does not require employers to
offer paid vacation leave (Center for Economic and Policy Research, 2013).
At the same time, research conclusively demonstrates that time spent for psychological
performance and health problems (e.g., Fritz & Sonnentag, 2006). Thus, both employees and
organizations may be suffering when employees do not use their allotted vacation days. As
even mandate, the provision and use of sick/vacation time. Other options include providing
more time off for certain populations such as younger employees (to pursue schooling) and
shift workers (so they can spend more time with family). Also, organizations could provide
more time off for employees who volunteer in the community and engage in civic activities.
outcomes.
Recommendation 2: Develop legislation promoting paid sick leave and develop clearer
Organizations are adopting wellness programs at an increasing rate (RAND, 2013). Research
suggests that workplace wellness interventions can lead to positive outcomes such as smoking
cessation, weight loss, and lower cholesterol and blood pressure (RAND 2013). However, as
seen in Table 4, several important concerns and questions about these programs and their
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potential benefit remain.
Focus on decreasing negative outcomes (e.g., obesity), not on enhancing positive ones
(e.g., developing resilience, gratitude)
However, research conclusively shows that well-being reflects both the absence of negative
factors and the presence of positive ones.
Given these factors, there is a need for scientifically developed and evaluated
programs. Also, given their knowledge about the workplace and workplace well-being,
programs.
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Attending to Special Populations
Research and policy focused on certain populations could provide the most value, both to
those groups and to the economy as a whole. International research has demonstrated that
workers experience a decline in their work ability based on the external environment. This can
include such aspects as society, culture, legislation, educational, social and health policy, as
well as employees’ immediate social environment at work and their family. However, there are
still many unanswered questions concerning work ability and aging, as well as among
More specifically, given the aging workforce, more research is needed on retirement
security/well-being of aging employees. There is evidence that positive work experiences have
long-term effects on daily living independence in later life. Furthermore, the recent economic
recession highlighted the need to understand and combat underemployment for high-skilled
areas. Finally, scientific evidence is needed on Veterans in the workforce, especially with
populations.
Managers and supervisors generally are the place “where the rubber meets the road” in terms
but front-line management must institute those policies. Research offers several evidence-
based strategies that organizational leaders as well as front-line supervisors can use to help
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enhance employee well-being.
Table 5. Strategies that Managers and Supervisor Can Use to Improve Well-Being
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