Employee Wellbeing

Employee wellbeing: a definition

Employee wellbeing (الرفاهية الوظيفية) is the state of an employee at work across its several dimensions (physical, psychological, financial and social), to the extent that each of those dimensions is affected by the work itself.

Two parts of that definition carry its meaning. The first is that employee wellbeing is a state with several dimensions, not a single one, so a description of it that names one dimension describes part of it. The second is the qualifier at the end: each dimension enters the definition only in so far as the work itself bears on it. So the concept concerns what the job does to the employee in each of the four dimensions, not every aspect of the employee’s life.

The definition also speaks of a state. Employee wellbeing describes the condition the employee is actually in, as distinct from anything the organisation provides to the employee, and as distinct from the time the employee spends at work or away from it.

The four dimensions of employee wellbeing

Employee wellbeing has four dimensions, not one, and each of them is described by the points at which the work reaches it:

• Physical. It covers the safety of the working environment, the nature of the work in terms of sitting or movement, and the effect of the work schedule on sleep. These are three separate points: the place where the work is done, the way the body is held or moved while doing it, and whether the hours of work leave room for sleep.
• Psychological. It covers stress, clarity of role, the relationship with the manager, and psychological safety at work. Clarity of role concerns whether the employee knows what the role requires of them. The relationship with the manager and psychological safety at work are listed as two separate points within the dimension, alongside stress and clarity of role, and none of the four stands in for the others.
• Financial. It covers whether pay is adequate, whether it is paid regularly, and whether the employee is clear about what they are entitled to. The dimension therefore holds three separate points: the amount of the pay, the regularity with which it arrives, and the employee’s clarity about their entitlement.
• Social. It covers the employee’s connection with their team. It is the dimension that remote working arrangements bear on directly.

A programme that addresses one dimension (a gym membership, for example) can be presented as addressing employee wellbeing as a whole. That presentation leaves the other three dimensions unchanged.

How employee wellbeing differs from benefits

Benefits are what the organisation provides. Employee wellbeing is the state the employee is actually in. The first describes the organisation’s offer; the second describes the condition of the person who works there.

There is a gap between the two. An organisation that provides extended health insurance and a psychological support programme can still have employees who work under constant pressure, because the source of that pressure lies in how the work is distributed, not in the absence of a service. Both services exist in that organisation, and neither of them reaches the source of the pressure, because the source is not a missing service. It is in the distribution of the work, which neither the insurance nor the programme alters. Repeatedly giving a team a workload beyond its capacity is one of the examples given in Psychosocial Risks.

For that reason, what is measured is the effect, not the spending. The amount spent on benefits records what was provided. It does not record the state of the employees, and the state of the employees is what employee wellbeing refers to. An organisation can spend more on benefits and see no change in that state, where the source of the harm lies elsewhere in the work.

What comes before any employee wellbeing programme

The order that saves effort is to examine, first, the sources of harm in the work itself, and only then to add supporting services. The sources to be examined are these:

• a workload that cannot be sustained;
• a schedule that leaves no room for recovery;
• ambiguity about who is responsible for what;
• a manager in front of whom it is not possible to raise an objection.

Each of these sits within the work, not outside it, and that is why the examination starts with them. Once these sources have been examined, the supporting services are added.

The reverse order, in which services are added on top of a cause that is still present, can be taken as an attempt to deal with the symptom. The cause stays in the work, and the service operates alongside it without removing it, so the harm that the examination would have found is still there after the service has been added.

How employee wellbeing is measured without overclaiming

No single number measures employee wellbeing. The practical approach is to look at several indicators together:

• the absenteeism rate;
• the unused leave balance;
• actual working hours set against the statutory working hours;
• the reasons for leaving given in exit interviews.

Each of these indicators can carry other explanations, so each is followed as a trend over time rather than taken as a verdict on its own. Each indicator therefore enters the reading alongside the others, not in place of them. A single reading of one indicator does not establish the state of employee wellbeing. What the approach relies on is the direction the indicators take across successive readings, and the way several of them move together.

How employee wellbeing differs from the balance between work and life

The balance between work and life concerns how time and energy are divided between work and everything outside it. It is one element of employee wellbeing, not another name for it.

The division of time can be sound while the pressure within working hours themselves is high. In that case the balance between work and life is in order, but employee wellbeing is still affected, because the pressure lies inside the hours that the balance has already set aside for work. A sound division of time does not settle what happens within those hours, and employee wellbeing takes in both.

This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.