Well-being is part of the constitution of the WHO: "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity“

Work and well-being are extremely connected: the quality of working conditions has a direct impact on the quality of life of each individual.

Risks to mental health and well-being can come from a number of sources and include sources related to the workplace

Excessive workloads Control Conflicting demands and lack of clarity about roles Inadequate management of organisational change, job insecurity Ineffective communication, lack of support from colleagues or superiors Violence and bullying

Bad working conditions lead to:

• Health problems for the worker
• Loss of productivity for the employer
• 4-5 % drop in GDP of a country

An answer can be found in „Maslow's hierarchy of needs“

The pyramid shows human needs. Each level needs to be completly fulfilled, to pursuit needs of a higher level.

• All levels, except of the self-actualisation level, are „dissatisfiers“:  Only lacking of it is felt, fulfillment does not satisfy
• Self-actualisation is the only satisfier, making feel „fulfilled“, increasing happiness, well-being

Another approach: Self-determination theory: Motivation and well-being

• intrinsic instead extrinsic motivation

• Promoting autonomy, a sense of competence, responsibility and membership instead material incentives.

  Research was done in 2014 via digital, anonymous online poll of a sample of 3350 employees working in Switzerland in various occupational groups and industries.

As Key factors with impact on well-being it was asked for:

• Meaningfulness
• Workload
• Commitment to work
• Social resources
• Manageability

Different scales were used for the data analysis:

• for the variable Well-being: WHO-5-Well-being-Index

• for Workload →self-created scale with 4 items (time pressure, interruptions, unclear guidelines and exhaustion after work) on a 5-point Likert scale ("very true" to "not true")

• for Social resources → self-created scale with 4 items (appreciation of work by superiors, by co-workers, respectful interaction and fair procedures) on the same 5-point Likert scale

• Work engagement → Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES)

• Meaningfulness, Manageability and Understandability →Work Sense Of Coherence scale (W-SOC)

Significant impact could be identified with...

• Workload: a higher workload is associated with a lower well-being (particularly for profiles with management tasks)

• Commitment to work: Can partly compensate the negative effects of high workload (particularly for profiles without management tasks), but too much commitment can lead to overforcement, stress and less well-being (Overcommitment)

• Social resources: a relatively low relevance compared to other work-related factors. Only when problems with social relationships at work occur in combination with high workload or low work engagement, does well-being significantly decrease.

The Healthy Workplace Model consists of an 8-step project process:

1. Mobilise stakeholders to obtain support and the necessary resources
2. Assemble a working group that is representative of the stakeholders
3. Assess the context and needs by collecting quantitative and qualitative data in order to understand the problems
4. Identify priorities for action
5. Plan a programme or project
6. Do the planned activities
7. Evaluate what is being achieved - products and changes –
8. Improve the programme or project on the basis of the results obtained

  Topic contains a big potential of conflicts and frustration

• Many trade-offs: experience vs. talent, time vs. quality, competition vs. team spirit, …
• Output-based salaries are likely to lead to overforcement of some workers (similar to overcommitment)
• Risk of overjustification effect

Especially in factories, some activities can be monotonous. But there are opportunities to provide variation to workers, increasing the well-being:

Job rotation: Changing activity, by rotating work stations for example
Job enlargement: Increasing range of activities, but keeping competences/skill requirements on the same level (horizontal measurement)
Job enrichment: Increasing range of activities and level of competences/skill requirements, more responsibility and autonomy (vertical measurement)

• Insurance against the risk of non-self-sufficiency and serious illness;

• Vouchers to pay for babysitting;

• Payment of nursery school fees, university fees, school textbooks;

• Vocational and personal training of workers;

• Services related to sports, personal care, culture and travel;

• Shopping vouchers and fuel vouchers.

• ...