What Are the Key Components of Workplace Well-Being?: Examining Real-Life Experiences in Different Work Contexts

Abstract

Debate among researchers and practitioners persists as to how to define a workplace well-being construct that measures people’s experienced well-being. Existing definitions often have a differing narrow focus on eudaimonic or hedonic aspects of well-being. An inductive approach to determining key features of workplace well-being through exploring real-life work experience might alleviate this issue as checking the meanings people assign to well-being would create further insight into key aspects of the workplace well-being concept. Further, the endeavor to understand how different people at work experience well-being is important as their understanding is likely to impact on how they maintain and enhance well-being, how they rate their well-being in occupational surveys, how they respond to interventions, and how they manage their own well-being. Therefore, this research explores through two studies of lay descriptions of workplace well-being and extends previous research by using an inductive framework of an occupationally heterogeneous sample. Different groups of employees in different work settings were given qualitative surveys and took part in interviews and focus groups in order to establish components of workplace well-being. Dominant components were established through thematic content analysis. Similarities and differences were found between lay and theoretical conceptualizations of well-being. Results indicate that a multicomponent measure of workplace well-being should go beyond hedonic and eudaimonic aspects by including an energy component and social and physical aspects of well-being at work. Further, the use of a context-specific definitions and resulting implications for designing workplace well-being interventions is also discussed.

Appendices

Appendix 1 Second-Level Coding Results for Descriptions of High Well-Being

Category	Subcategory	Example	Frequency
Cognitive	Concentration	Focused	2
	Motivation	Feel motivated	6
	Stimulated, positively challenged	Everything seems possible, positively stretched	5
	Feel positive, optimistic	Same as subcategory description	3
	Absorption	Lost sense of time	1
	Feeling of accomplishment	Same as subcategory description	2
	Creativity	Sense of creativity	5
Mind/body	Energy	Feel energised	15
	Centred	Sense of being centred, still centre	2
	Feel well	Same as subcategory description	2
	Vitality	Vitality, feel alive	2
	Flow	Feeling of flow, feeling in the zone, being in the groove	5
	Connected	Feel connected with the world	2
Emotional	Excited	Same as subcategory description	2
	Content	Happy, warm emotional feeling, content	14
	Enjoyment	Enjoyment & fun	1
	Confident	Same as subcategory description	4
	Relaxed	Same as subcategory description	1
	Valued	Feel valued and useful	1
	Enthusiastic	Feel elevated	1
	Satisfied	Same as subcategory description	2
Social	Interaction	Interact with colleagues, extraversion	4
	Communication	Communication and chatty	3
	Exchange	Responsive to others, interaction and reaction	3
	Relatedness	Relatedness, compassion	2
	Supportive towards others	Support others, contribute to others success	2
	Respect from and influence over others	Will be listened to attentively and with respect; will have the opportunity to influence	1
	People appear content	Fewer complaint, fewer nastiness	2
Body	Physical symptoms	Absence of negative physical symptoms	1
	Not tired	Same as subcategory description	1
	Fit, healthy	Feeling good with own body, feeling fit, feeling healthy	3
Task related	Enjoyable	High level of job satisfaction, work is enjoyable	2
	Rich	Work is rich	1
	Engaged	Fully engaged with work, feeling engaged	3
	Productive	Things get done easily, capacity to deliver more, growth	3
	Contribution	Contribution to work, others success	4
	Gets done easily	Solution found easily, work gets done easily	1
		Same as subcategory description
Others	Success	Same as subcategory description	1
	In control	Same as subcategory description	1
	Not stressed	Same as subcategory description	2
	Low absenteeism	Same as subcategory description	1
	Want to be at work	Same as subcategory description	1
	Purpose	Clear purpose, sense of purpose	2
	Work-life balance	Work and life fit together, able to make decisions about balance	4
	Open	Same as subcategory description	1
	Things go well	Same as subcategory description	1

Appendix 2 Domains Referred to by Participants when Describing High Well-Being^a

Participant	Cognitive	Emotional	Mind/body	Physical	Social	Task-related	Others	No. of domains
1.					x			1
2.	x		x	x	x			4
3.	x	x	x				x	4
4.	x				x	x	x	4
5.	x	x	x					3
6.	x	x						2
7.	x	x	x					3
8.			x					1
9.	x	x	x			x		4
10.						x		1
11.			x	x				2
12.						x		1
13.		x						1
14.		x	x		x			3
15.	x				x	x		3
16.		x	x				x	3
17.	x		x					2
18.	x	x						2
19.			x					1
20.	x		x					2
21.	x			x				2
22.	x	x			x		x	4
23.					x			1
24.			x					1
25.				x		x		2
26.							x	1
27.		x	x					2
28.	x	x						2
29.			x					1
30.			x					1
31.			x	x		x		3
32.		x			x			2
33.	x	x			x	x		4
34.	x		x					2
35.						x	x	3
36.		x				x	x	3
37.	x		x					2
37.		x						1
38.					x	x	x	3
39.							x	1
40.	x		x			x		3
41.		x			x		x	3
42.	x		x				x	3
43.		x		x				2
Frequency of domain	19/44 43.18%	18/44 40.91%	21/44 47.73%	6/44 13.64%	11/44 25.00%	12/44 27.28%	11/44 25.00%

1. ^aIf an individual used several indicators of the same domain to describe well-being, the domain was counted only once

Appendix 3 Number of Domains Mentioned Together in Descriptions of Own Well-Being

Number of domains	Frequency	Percentage (%)
1 (mentioned by itself)	13/44	29.54
2	13/44	29.54
3	12/44	27.28
4	6/44	13.64