Week 11 - Employee Well-Being

Question 1

What is employee well-being?

Answer 1

• A measure of a person’s happiness, psychological, emotional and mental state. Therefore it is strongly linked to how satisfied a person feels about both themselves and their life
• Why should organisations worry about employee well-being?
  
  • Improved productivity, quality of work, and overall morale and culture of the organization
  • Increased retention rates
  • Better able to attract quality candidates
  • More likely to avoid high costs associated with absenteeism, presenteeism, injury and illness
  • Source: The Australian Human Resource Institute (AHRI)

Question 2

What leads to employee well-being?

Answer 2

• Research indicates employee well-being to be an outcome of the intersection of an employee’s work and family/life

Question 3

Where does work & family/life begin or end?

Answer 3

Work: Any instrumental activity intended to provide goods and services to support life

Family: Persons related by biological ties, marriage, social custom, or adoption

Life: All activities and relationships that belong to work, family, and any other domain of one’s existence

Question 4

The intersection of work and family/life results in three main outcomes:

Answer 4

Conflict: a form of inter-role conflict in which the role pressures from the work and family domains are mutually incompatible in some respect

Enrichment: The extent to which experiences in one role (e.g. work) improve the quality of life in the other role” (e.g. family)

Balance: The individual’s perception that work and non-work activities are compatible and promote growth in accordance with an individual’s current life priorities

Question 5

Factors challenging employee well-being

Answer 5

• Increasing work intensity, load, and hours, especially among professionals
• Lack of job security
• Advancements in technology
• Rise in dual-income/career families
• Ageing population (i.e. elderly dependents)
• Stagnant gender norms pertaining to work and non-work domains

Question 6

Forms and directionality work-family conflict

Answer 6

Forms

• Time: When time used in performing one role minimises an individual’s ability to perform the other role
• Strain: When stressors in one role drains an individual’s mental/physical energy to perform the other role
• Behaviour: When behaviours required of one role are incompatible with behavioural expectations of the other role

Directionality

• Work-to-family conflict (W-F)
• Family-to-work conflict (F-W)

Question 7

Factors influencing work-family conflict

Answer 7

Family

• Instrumental: relief from family-related duties
• Emotional: encouragement and understanding

Work

• Family supportive supervisor
• Family supportive organisational policies (e.g. flexitime, telework)

Individual

• Coping strategies used by individuals (e.g. problem-focused, avoidance)

Public policy

• Legislation pertaining to employee rights

Question 8

Conflict, coping, and well-being

Answer 8

Family-support, conflict and well-being

• Instrumental and emotional assistance likely to be intertwined resulting in reduced F-W conflict
• This in turn is likely to positively impact on well-being

Work-support, conflict, and well-being

• A family-supportive supervisor reduces the probability of W-F conflict, thus increasing well-being
• Complex relationships exist between organisational family supportive policies such as flexitime and telework and employee experiences of conflict and therefore, well-being

Problem-focused coping, conflict, and well-being

• Likelihood of problem-focused coping to reduce conflict and thus increase well-being is a function of the degree of control an individual has in relation to a given life domain