UK 
United States
By Lord Mark Price, Founder, WorkL for Business
Well-being is no longer a buzz word, it has fully become engrained in our everyday lives. People understand the importance of it and seek to attain it.
But how do we truly know how calm, relaxed and happy we are, especially in our working lives? Wellbeing is something WorkL for Business can successfully measure and help employers identify who have a ‘well-being risk’.
The latest data from the platform show the current well-being risk to be 31%. This means just under one third of employees are falling below average with their well-being score in WorkL’s Happiness Test.
To better understand levels of stress and anxiety, the test, which has been taken by over 250,000 people asks the question, ‘I rarely feel anxious or depressed about work”. This question scores 61%, the lowest score to date, which highlights that there are high levels of anxiety amongst people who have answered this question.
The higher the number, the larger the percentage of employees with low well-being, the higher the risk. A percentage score of 0%, indicates no employees with low Wellbeing scores.
The survey is currently being taken by 5,000 employees a week and measures factors such as working environment, relationship with line manager, sense of purpose and career progression. These well-being results are a useful indicator for employers to monitor employees with the aim to improve employee retention rates and ensure that their teams are happy and engaged.
Last month’s scores broken down by sector reveal that those working in Retail (36%), Health & Social Care (34%), Travel & Leisure (34%) and Hospitality (33%) score the lowest when rating their well-being at work. It’s no surprise that these sectors score poorly considering they have been impacted most by the Covid-19 pandemic with sectors effectively shut down, working at limited capacity or incredibly overstretched (Health and Social Care).
Research shows that happy and engaged employees drive 20% improvement in profits, productivity and reduce employees’ sick absence and staff turnover. Individuals who feel they have more control over their working life, well-being and environment will take more responsibility for the success of their employer.
Once a ‘well-being risk’ has been identified employers could look to WorkL’s six steps which enables businesses to help improve workplace happiness and importantly, retention. Here at WorkL we believe in the importance of reward and recognition, information sharing, empowerment, well-being, job satisfaction and instilling price. These six steps have been identified by WorkL as being key to improving workplace happiness which ultimately helps to improve productivity in the workplace.
To keep track of how the global workforce feel about their working lives, take a look at our free reports published each month with up-to-date analysis or join us for our free monthly webinars.
