In many organisations, employees may be disengaged and morale low, yet management do not know the full extent of this because it’s not regularly or thoroughly assessed. Some employers are now looking to ascertain, measure, improve, and manage the wellbeing of their people, and management consultants need tools for dealing with stressful organisational change, performance, or wellbeing improvement initiatives.
They are doing this because empirical research is confirming a strong link between employee wellbeing leading to engagement, and then productivity at work, and then to subsequent better business outcomes, profitability, and success.
In particular, it is the link between wellbeing leading to, and underpinning, engagement that has been largely unrealised up until now by most organisations and organisational specialists (e.g., HR managers, coaching and organisational psychologists). Instead, some organisations have focused on ‘wellness’ and the link between physical health and engagement with Health Risk Assessments (e.g., heart checks) and various health provisions (e.g., yoga classes, discounted gym memberships).
Investing in wellness is worthwhile as it increases wellbeing, and then engagement, yet it is not as strong, or as comprehensive, as directly addressing wellbeing.
