Well-Being in the Workplace: Governance and Sustainability Insights to Promote Workplace Health

Well-being in the workplace is one of the essential domains for contemporary organisations. Several reasons can be advanced for the importance of studying employee well-being at work. Historically in the late nineteenth century, employers paid little attention to employee well-being, though there were some exceptions as some employers (Quaker Cadbury family and Lever Brothers) generally cared about employees’ well-being and introduced practices that assisted employees in the workplace and life outside of work (Cooper and Robertson 2001; Newall 2002). However, most employers at that time held a different view. Regarding employees as a necessity, but burdensome financial evil was a far more frequent phenomenon (Currie 2001). Social and economic history shows that it took centuries to develop the employment relationship where well-being is recognised as an organisational responsibility (Cooper and Robertson 2001). However, one often wonders if, under the organisational façade of ‘putting people first’, whether this attitude is still uppermost in contemporary employers thinking but is being stopped by the now pressing ‘best practice’ and employment legislation standards, unions, and human rights corporative. This chapter introduces the historical development of employee well-being research and its growth and prevalence in academia and government agendas that focuses on the health and well-being of employees as integral to businesses and the economy’s productivity.

The management and treatment of employees stems from the history of Human Resource Management (HRM) in the eighteenth century. Welfare ideological businesses were concerned about the health and education of their workforce as their responsibility. Alternatively, Scientific Management viewed teamwork and worker consultation as unnecessary. In contrast, Elton Mayo’s ‘Human Relations Movement’ focused on the ‘human’ side of management viewing ‘psychological factors’ as important in understanding and influencing workplace performance. This prompted change and the emergence of the HRM ideology along as a result of external pressures on industry resulting in increasing competition in national and international markets. This chapter reviews the historical and theoretical development and debates of the Human Potential Movement, well-being at work, diverse HRM literature streams, high-commitment HRM practices that are espoused to promote high-performing organisations.

This chapter reviews the historical development and HRM and well-being at work research. Historically, the treatment of employees can be traced back to the Industrial Revolution in England in the eighteenth century with welfare paternalist employers viewing the health and welfare of their employees as their responsibility. Taylor’s Scientific Management viewed team working and work consultation as unnecessary and undesirable, with managers being responsible for task performance. However, the ‘Human Relations Movement’ was associated with a ‘people-focused’ side of management viewing psychosocial factors as important in understanding and influencing well-being at work and workplace performance. HRM replaced a welfare-based Personnel Management and is distinctive with a strategic focus. Well-being is a complex construct that concerns optimal experience and psychological functioning (Ryan and Deci 2001). The growth in the field of well-being in the UK is evidenced by the expansion of interest academically within organisations and government-commissioned research on well-being to provide empirical evidence on the promotion of health and well-being of Britain’s working-age population. Multidimensional well-being domains that consider the individual, group, and organisation dimensions within the employment relationship are developed from the literature. These well-being paradigms have implications for the quality of working life, mental health, fairness perceptions, sickness absence, stress reduction, positive well-being and performance. This chapter and the research and discussion presented in this book seek to contribute to the debate in these areas.

Unlike the private sector, the public sector requires more evidence to justify how well-being initiatives contribute to employee motivation and performance. Does well-being in both sectors mean the same thing? Businesses seek employee well-being as a vehicle to their sustained competitive advantage and achievement of performance. Most literature in the evaluation of Human Resource Management management (HRM) practices showed the application of two fit theories, ‘fit with best practice’ and ‘fit with contingency’. Empirical research and conceptualisation of a relevant model to standardise, measure, and to better understand the relationships between employee’s reaction to high-commitment HRM practices, the quality of working life and well-being at work is still understudied. Hence, this chapter as part of a larger scale study presents a conceptual framework to address these antecedents and consequences in the context of new public management.

This chapter presents a methodological approach that can be adopted for well-being research that can delve beneath the surface of employees’ quality of working life experiences to unearth their working life realities, social interactions, and well-being at work. An alternative methodological conceptualisation (mixed-method approach) is explored as most well-being methodologies have been fundamentally quantitative. A mixed approach is considered more appropriate for understanding the in-depth complexity of employees’ perceptions and reactions to HRM practices, the quality of working life, line management leadership, and well-being at work.

This chapter provides a deeper insight into the work environment of the UK local government organisation in North West of England that embraced the New Public Management ideology that focused on cost minimisation and enhanced service delivery. The researcher observations of the work environment and the social actors within the organisation, along with the documentary analysis of HRM, well-being, and White Paper policies and government documents provided relevant ‘trivia’ or details that helped to construct the story of the working life realities of managers and employees of this public sector organisation. Central themes of a ‘controlled and tense’ working environment as well as a perceived ‘lack of trust’ between the employer and employees emerged as salient.

This chapter explores through empirical research employees’ perspectives as it relates to stressors that promote workplace stress, ill-health, and negative well-being at work as well as organisational factors that can be implemented to improve workplace stress, health, well-being, and performance. A qualitative methodological approach was adopted using thirty-six semi-structured interviews. The findings reveal stressor commonalities and differences exist among employees and managers, managers and executive directors, managers and the union, and the union and employees. Improvements in organisational factors to reduce or prevent workplace stress and burnout included individual, group, and organisational well-being dimensions. This chapter discusses these commonalities and differences and implications for managers, HR and wellness practitioners, and organisational leaders.

This chapter explores empirical research that relates to employees’ perspectives on mental health and well-being in the workplace. This research is part of a broader research project that explored employees’ reactions to HRM practices, the quality of working life, leadership, and well-being in the workplace. Informants were asked five research questions: definition and understanding of mental health and mental ill-health; experiences of mental ill-health at work and support strategies to assist employees; leadership development to respond to mental health concerns; removing the stigma of mental ill-health at work; and enhancing mental health and well-being in the workplace. The methodological approach adopted was mixed qualitative and entailed thirty-six semi-structured interviews and two focus groups with employees, the union, managers, and executive directors, respectively. The findings reveal that informants defined mental health as cognitive and psychological stability and satisfaction. In contrast, mental ill-health was defined as mistreatment at work that results in depression, anxiety, and emotional instability. The findings from the other research questions relate to the material aspects of the employment relationship that will effectively govern and manage the twenty-first-century workforce for sustained mental health and well-being.

This chapter explores through empirical research the similarities and differences that exist between multigenerational cohorts at work (i.e. Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y or Millennials) and their perspectives that relate to well-being at work. A qualitative methodological approach was adopted using 36 semi-structured interviews and two focus groups. The research questions explored the respondents’ definition of well-being at work, individual well-being at work need perspective, and how employers can enhance their happiness, health, and well-being at work of a multigenerational workforce. The findings reveal similarities and differences that exist between the multigenerational cohort definition, well-being needs, and improvements in well-being. This chapter discusses these commonalities and differences and implications for managers, HR practitioners, and organisational leaders. Future research in these areas is proposed.

This chapter critically examines the reactions of managerial and non-managerial employees’ to HRM practices, working life, and well-being initiatives in local government. The implication of these experiences in a time of restricted resources is the central focus. The methodological approach is a case study that draws from an Interpretivism paradigm of hermeneutic phenomenology using mixed methods. The qualitative approach adopted was from a review of company documents, observation field notes, and semi-structured interviews, which provided rich empirical in-depth data that uncovered the understanding and meanings of employees’ lived experiences. The study revealed that the local government organisational practices and observations made were aligned to a NPM environment that is subjected to changing structures. Although the organisation was committed to the adoption of ‘best practice’ HRM and well-being initiatives geared towards promoting employee well-being, there was a discrepancy between the intended effects of policy initiatives and working experiences.

The objective of this chapter and empirical research study is to explore managerial and non-managerial employees’ perspectives that relate to work–family conflicts that affect work-life balance, health and well-being initiatives to promote work-life-balance satisfaction, and the employers’ implementation of family-friendly support to promote a more psychologically healthy workplace. The methodological approach adopted in this study is qualitative. Thirty-six semi-structured interviews were conducted with key informants and two focus groups with managerial and non-managerial employees from diverse occupational groups (i.e. education, health, finance, forestry, public sector, social work, first nations, not-for-profit, hospitality, legal, information technology, and retail). The findings reveal that work–family conflicts that affect employees’ work life include limited resources, stress, poor relationships, substance abuse, and other external factors. Factors to support a family-friendly workplace include fun and family-friendly activities, counselling, periodic breaks, trust, and confidentiality. Health and well-being initiatives to promote work-life balance and well-being satisfaction include company group health plan, EAP, Gym membership, flexible working arrangements, wellness strategies, and fairness at work. Organisational leaders, managers, HR and well-being professionals, and researchers may find these factors relevant and insightful for policy and practice, in contrast to the management literature.

Most of the research that has been published in occupational health psychology relates the role of work and working life to the management of chronic ill-health (Cox et al. 2000), which has implications for sickness absence (Collins et al. 2005; Cox et al. 2014); and the impact of working on the quality of life of people at work. From an HRM and Employment Relations perspectives, in the case of public sector employees, there is also the questions of the role that work can play in the quality of their working life, the meaning they give to their jobs and how work experiences have contributed to their well-being at work. This chapter is based on ongoing research into well-being at work with British Local Government, focusing on 27 semi-structured interviews of managerial and non-managerial employees verbal accounts of their own experiences of work, quality of working life, and the meanings of the job perceptions. The data reveals that work and the quality of working life were challenging for both managerial and non-managerial employees and was strongly associated with four super-ordinate themes that impacted the individuals, groups, and the organisation, which include restricted resources and controlled work environment, workplace incivility and mistreatment, relationships, and work-life balance. Furthermore, the findings from the respondents’ account for the meaning of their job are clustered into one super-ordinate theme of identity-work-life integration. The impact of the findings for work, quality of working life, the meaning of the job, and employee well-being and performance are discussed.

The notion of employee well-being at work is growing in momentum as employment continues to change aiming to achieve higher performance, organisational success, and a safer, more satisfying and healthier working life. Whilst ‘well-being at work’ prescriptions are common in the literature, it is important to ascertain whether ‘one size fits all’ and whether the ‘best practice’ well-being philosophy used in the private sector can be advocated in the public sector. This research adopted a qualitative methodological approach, and twenty-seven semi-structured (60–90 min) interviews were conducted with managers and employees in a UK local government organisation in North West of England. The interviews were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The findings reveal that although wellness management initiates were implemented throughout the organisation, managers and employees depicted that the material aspects of the employment relationship had to be developed further, as well as stressors from the NPM environment needs to be addressed first, before the well-being ideology can be considered and improved.

This chapter discusses the empirical results based on research that explored employees’ reactions to HRM practices, the quality of working life, line management leadership, and well-being at work in a UK’s local government organisation in the North West of England. The key findings from this main research are presented throughout this book and have implications and insights for the academic literature, leaders, managers, practitioners, and employees alike. This chapter also presents some empirical findings from 27 semi-structured interviews conducted with managers and employees to ascertain their perspectives regarding their line management leadership approach that is responsive to the promotion of their well-being at work. Managers and employees also shared how they would like to see their line managers’ leadership style improved to promote their well-being at work. Both managers and employees opted for a more ‘people-focused’ humanistic, relational, communicative, involvement, transparency, trustworthiness, compassionate, fairness at work, and dignity and civility at work approach to leadership as apposed to their present working life realities.

Evaluating the well-being at work research that was conducted with managers and employees at the local government organisation of North West of England relates to Terkel (1977: 1) depiction of work, which is likened unto violence to the spirit and the body, about ulcers, accidents, shouting matches, fistfights, nervous breakdown as well as kicking the dog around; it is about daily humiliations for the walking wounded among the great many of us. A mixed-method approach was adopted which was predominantly qualitative, conducting 27 semi-structured interviews, observations, documentary analysis of company and government policy documents, and the analysis of a questionnaire survey. The findings reveal that these public sector workers were not privileged to embrace or accept well-being ideology as the cost minimisation government strategy expected employees to produce more with less. This resulted in increased stress levels, workloads, anxiety, mental ill-health, workplace absence, tensions between teams, mistreatment and incivility behaviours and attitudes at work. Managers and employees’ depiction of well-being at work centred around dignity and fairness at work.

This chapter critically explores workers’ experiences of workplace violence in the forestry sector in British Columbia, Canada. The chapter examines employees’ definition and experiences of workplace violence, and the drivers of workplace violence as perceived by managers, employees, and the union. Questionnaire survey, telephone interviews, and focus groups were used to focus on managers, employees, and the union representatives verbal accounts of their own experiences and perceptions of workplace violence. A mixed methodology is appropriate for addressing the research aims and provided insight into the lifeworld of participants as it relates to their experiences of workplace violence. The findings reveal that workplace violence is defined and perceived as physical, psychological, social/relational. The findings also reveal that definition, experiences and drivers of workplace violence are associated with threatening behavior, discrimination, bullying and harassment, work-life conflict, seniority and overtime, poor job design, workplace stress, mental health, substance abuse, blue color male-dominated environment, jealousy, and distrust. Implications of the findings for workplace violence, employee well-being, HRM, leadership and policy are discussed.

Though essential, the achievement of business-oriented performance outcomes has obscured the importance of employee well-being at work, which is a neglected area of inquiry within the field of HRM. Focusing on employees’ views of line management leadership and its implications for employee well-being at work has received little attention. This study discusses preliminary findings from ongoing research and presents a better understanding of the diversity of experiences employees receive within their organization based on leadership practices and its implications for well-being at work, service delivery, and performance. The research described in this chapter was conducted at a local government organization in North England. Using the technique of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) provided insight into the lifeworld of participants, providing the opportunity for employees to share their personal experience of leadership on the front line and its implication for employee well-being at work. The impact of the findings for line management leadership and employee well-being at work and performance is discussed.

This chapter aims to critically examine the dynamics of fun and well-being at work, as experienced and perceived by senior managers in a public sector context. This chapter is based on research into well-being at work with a British Local Authority, focusing on 12 senior managers through verbal accounts of their own experiences and perceptions of fun initiatives. The data revealed that managers were not having ‘fun’. However, well-being at work emerged as central to influencing and enabling ‘fun at work’ and was strongly linked to eight organisational factors: working time arrangements; stress management; communication strategies; reward strategies; management development; team working; relationships with stakeholders; clarification and reduction in change initiatives. Thus, while ‘fun at work’ prescriptions are common in the literature, findings from these accounts indicate people might be happier to experience better well-being at work.

This chapter critically examines what signals the prevalence of workplace violence in Canada’s Natural Resource Industry. This chapter also seeks to understand the consequences of workplace violence and explores the degree to which workplace violence can be stopped; and how employers can strive for violence-‘free’ and healthy workplace. A questionnaire survey, telephone interviews, and focus groups were used to focus on managers, union, and employees’ perceptions of their experiences and perceptions of workplace violence. Employees from across five different natural resource organisations completed three hundred and sixty-seven (367) questionnaire surveys that were analysed. Twenty (20) semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with each interview lasting 60–75 min, tape-recorded, and transcribed verbatim. Two focus groups were conducted: one with 15 managers only and the other with 10 union representatives. Each focus group lasted 45–60 min, tape-recorded, and transcribed verbatim. The findings reveal thirteen key themes emerged as salient to natural resource workers’ perspectives of workplace violence, prevalence of violence, consequences of violence, prevention of violence, and how employers can strive towards a violence-‘free’ and healthy workplace. These themes include the work environment, trust, relationships, generational differences, workplace stress, work-life conflict, employee well-being, leadership, mental health, job redesign, communication and collaboration, education and training, and violent prevention policies and activities. This research has relevance for workplace well-being, leadership, corporate social responsibility, governance, work-life balance, and overall organisational health and sustainability for practitioners and academics alike. The findings and insights from this research can be extrapolated to other organisations in British Columbia, Canada, and other parts of the world.