Assessing Employee Wellbeing in Schools Using a Multifaceted Approach: Associations with Physical Health, Life Satisfaction, and Professional Thriving (original) (raw)
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A Whole-School Approach to Promoting Staff Wellbeing
Australian Journal of Teacher Education
A caring school community can enhance whole-school wellbeing including the wellbeing of school staff, which directly impacts on student academic, social and emotional wellbeing. This study firstly examines the validity and reliability of a proposed wholeschool staff wellbeing evaluation tool which uses a set of whole-school wellbeing indicators to identify strengths and areas for improvement within the school environment which may be impacting on staff wellbeing. Secondly, the association between factors found within the whole-school staff wellbeing tool with staff self-reported mental health are examined, and finally, the influence of person characteristics and role of factors on perceived whole-school staff wellbeing are determined. Cross-sectional data were collected from 801 school staff from six non-government schools in Australia as part of the School Staff Wellbeing Project. Results confirmed and validated the hypothesised structure of the whole-school staff wellbeing evaluation tool with staff relationships (leadership, staff), staff engagement (active, supported), staff emotional wellbeing (supported through policies and opportunities) and school climate (culture and values) found to be significant predictors of mental health. Prioritising resources to building supportive staff relationships, school climate, and providing opportunities to promote staff emotional wellbeing, were found to have the greatest impact on staff mental health. Characteristics such as age, gender, education, role, and length of time working in schools predicted perceptions of the whole-school's general wellbeing. The whole-school staff wellbeing evaluation tool provides a useful screening and self-evaluation measure to identify whole-school staff wellbeing strengths and areas for improvement in staff wellbeing.
Drawing on recent research on determinants of subjective well-being, we developed and conducted a pilot study of an employee well-being questionnaire using M. Seligman's (2011) multidimensional PERMA model (Positive emotion, Engagement, positive Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment) model. Employees (N = 397) from postgraduate courses at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) completed a survey including 56 items which were theoretically relevant to the PERMA theory. Factor analyses recovered the expected five PERMA components and a negative emotion factor. Based on factor and reliability analyses, we reduced the 56 PERMA items to 35 items. Our results support the multidimensional approach to defining and measuring multidimensional well-being. A multidimensional well-being assessment may be useful for understanding employees' well-being, which can then be applied when developing policy and practice to increase well-being for all employees at work.
Development of the Work-Related Well-Being Questionnaire Based on Seligman's PERMA Model
Drawing on recent research on determinants of subjective well-being, we developed and conducted a pilot study of an employee well-being questionnaire using M. Seligman's (2011) multidimensional PERMA model (Positive emotion, Engagement , positive Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment) model. Employees (N = 397) from postgraduate courses at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) completed a survey including 56 items which were theoretically relevant to the PERMA theory. Factor analyses recovered the expected five PERMA components and a negative emotion factor. Based on factor and reliability analyses, we reduced the 56 PERMA items to 35 items. Our results support the multi-dimensional approach to defining and measuring multidimen-sional well-being. A multidimensional well-being assessment may be useful for understanding employees' well-being, which can then be applied when developing policy and practice to increase well-being for all employees at work.
International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology, 2019
Scholars are beginning to appreciate the work-related ‘drivers’ of wellbeing, i.e., the ways work may promote or hinder employees’ wellbeing. This paper brings a multidimensional perspective to bear on this topic by providing: (a) a multidimensional overview of these drivers; and (b) a multidimensional analysis of how they actually ‘drive’ wellbeing. The paper is in two parts. Part 1 briefly summarises the drivers, highlighting key theories and interventions. Part 2 then brings a multidimensional analysis to bear on the drivers, doing so by focusing on one driver in particular (‘managing emotions’) as a case study. This driver is analysed through the prism of a multidimensional model of the person, the ‘Layered Integrated Framework Example’ model. It is hoped that, in future, similar analyses can consequently be undertaken for the other drivers. The paper thus offers a generative research agenda for exploring how to enable people to flourish at work.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2022
Wellbeing in schools is often focused at the individual level, exploring students’ or teachers’ individual traits, habits, or actions that influence wellbeing. However, studies rarely take a whole-school approach that includes staff wellbeing, and frequently ignore relational and organizational level variables. We take a systems informed positive psychology approach and argue that it is essential to build greater understanding about organizational and relational influences on wellbeing in order for schools to support educator wellbeing. Our study evaluated the relative contributions of individual, relational, and organizational factors to educator wellbeing. Our measure of wellbeing focused on the life satisfaction and flourishing of 559 educators in 12 New Zealand schools. We used a social network analysis approach to capture educators’ relational ties, and demographic data and psychometric scales to capture individual and organizational level variables. Results of hierarchical blo...
Applying the PERMA model in employee wellbeing
The aim of this study is to define the essence of wellbeing in employee management, and present the functionality of the PERMA model in positive psychology. The first part of the study describes the multidimensionality of the concept of wellbeing and the difficulties in defining it. An important element of the conducted analysis is the presentation of the positive effects of the implementation of wellbeing in organisations, including elements of wellbeing dimensions and activities affecting wellbeing, while the most important part of the article is the diagnosis of the applicability of the PERMA model in the study of employee wellbeing and positive education. Different elements of the model are described and the latest solutions with regards to its improvement are presented. An analysis of the literature showed that a model with four additional dimensions-physical health, mindset, work environment and economic security-may be the most useful for analysing employee wellbeing. The next part of this publication is devoted to the use of the PERMA model in the classification of interventions, where we show that the model not only enables diagnosis of the weaknesses of wellbeing, but even facilitates the assigning of specific interventions. These solutions make it possible to build wellbeing that positively impacts employee behaviour, with the authors indicating discrepancies in the activities undertaken by organisations and the needs of employees with regards to wellbeing. The findings suggest that employees expect activities related to the development of their mental dimension and economic security, not necessarily related to physical health, which are most commonly implemented by organisations.
Journal of Wellness, 2020
Background: The deleterious direct and indirect effects of burnout among physicians and other health care professionals and learners have been well documented. Recently, there have been calls to shift the focus from distress and burnout to enhancing well-being of health care providers and learners. To this end, we developed a brief, well-being focused intervention entitled "CU Flourish" embedded in PERMA theory: positive emotion (P), engagement (E), relationships (R), meaning (M), and accomplishment (A) with a sixth domain-Healthin our working model. Within this framework, elements of values-based interventions, mindful awareness and psychological flexibility inherent to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy were integrated into the appropriate PERMAH domain modules. In this pilot study we examined the effectiveness of CU Flourish in increasing scores of workplace Well-being and Flourishing in a sample of health care professionals and learners. Methods: Participants (N=20) completed pre-post surveys including validated measures and open-ended questions as part of the program evaluation. Results: At post-course measurement, participants' overall PERMAH Workplace Well-being scores, Flourishing Ratio, and Mindfulness scores increased. Conclusion: Overall, the CU Flourish curriculum may be an effective and desirable intervention for enhancing workplace well-being among health care professionals and learners.
his study aimed to investigate the different dimensions of well-being (namely, work engagement, job satisfaction, and psychological stress) and possible predictors such as personality and perceived organizational support. A cross-sectional survey design was used, with a sample of 490 ambulance personnel in the United Kingdom. Significant correlations were found between the dimensions of job satisfaction, engagement, and stress. The results also supported a hierarchical model with job satisfaction, stress, and engagement loading onto one higher order factor of work well-being. Emotional stability and perceived organizational support were identified as significant predictors of well-being. The findings suggest the importance of measuring the work-related well-being of ambulance personnel holistically and present perceived organizational support as a possible area for interventions to improve well-being.
Impact of happiness-enhancing activities and positive practices on employee well-being
Journal of Asia Business Studies, 2021
Purpose Psychology studies have gradually evolved in the past decades from examining negative to positive states of mind. This has led to an increasing interest in understanding the well-being of individuals. Further, organizational research has demonstrated a positive impact of employee well-being on key business indicators. Drawing from positive psychology, this study examines the impact of happiness-enhancing activities and positive practices (HAPP) on employee well-being. Design/methodology/approach This study was conducted in an emerging information technology firm in India. Using validated measures, this study designed an online survey that was completed by 54 employees of the firm. Findings Employees largely perceived the HAPP as important but reported low levels of engagement in most activities or practices. Using hierarchical linear regression, this study found that self-concordant work significantly impacted employee’s job satisfaction and job-related affective well-being....
Effect of Teachers’ Happiness on Teachers’ Health. The Mediating Role of Happiness at Work
Frontiers in Psychology, 2019
The present study aims to expand the understanding of the effects of dispositional happiness and self-esteem, as dispositional traits, on the health of teachers, as well as to understand the role played by the working environment in generating positive affection, thus mediating between the dispositional traits and teachers' health. Two hundred and eighty-two full-time in-service teachers (93.6% female) from Rome (Italy) took part in this study. Their ages ranged from 26 to 55 (M = 40.49 years, SD = 5.93). Participants' teaching experience ranged from 1 to 31 years (M = 9.95 years, SD = 5.65). 30.6% of participants taught in kindergarten (for children aged 0-5 years), 42.6% in primary schools (for children aged 6-11 years), 15.8% in middle schools and 10.9% in high schools. A questionnaire was administered, containing: the Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS); the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES); The adapted version for teachers of the School Children Happiness Inventory (Ivens, 2007); the Physical and Mental Health Scales (SF12). The data were analyzed using the MPLUS software, version 8. Our results showed that teacher happiness at work partially mediates the relationship between dispositional happiness and teacher health, and fully mediates the relationship between self-esteem and teacher health. To the best of our knowledge, the mediational role of teacher happiness has not been addressed before, concerning these dimensions. At the same time, our findings confirmed the role of self-esteem in endorsing health-related behaviors, thus promoting physical and mental health. Moreover, according to our study findings, when teachers acknowledge their workplace as a context in which they feel happy, the impact of dispositional happiness and self-esteem on health conditions is higher. Effective measures to promote teachers' well-being are discussed.