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.
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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-Beinga
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% |
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 |
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Rook, C., O’Brien, A., Adarves-Yorno, I. (2020). What Are the Key Components of Workplace Well-Being?: Examining Real-Life Experiences in Different Work Contexts. In: Dhiman, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Workplace Well-Being. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02470-3_68-1
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