7OS06 Wellbeing at Work explores the importance of well-being in today’s workplace and how it affects both employers and employees. It gives learners a strong understanding of the relationship between work, health, and well-being, while also examining the social responsibilities organisations have through key theories in this area. The unit helps develop a critical understanding of how well-being initiatives can be designed, supported, and integrated into people practices to create strategic value. It also encourages students to engage with the main criticisms and debates surrounding the well-being agenda.
Table of Contents
Learning Outcome 1: Wellbeing and Its Relevance to the Workplace
AC 1.1 Critically evaluate the key theories and definitions that relate to wellbeing at work
Workplace wellbeing is a multidimensional construct encompassing physical, psychological, social, and financial dimensions of the employee experience. Definitionally, the CIPD (2023) describes wellbeing as the creation of an environment in which employees can thrive, feel engaged, and perform effectively without compromising their health. This breadth distinguishes wellbeing from narrower constructs such as occupational health or employee satisfaction.
Several theoretical frameworks have shaped the academic understanding of wellbeing. Ryff’s (1989) eudaimonic model – centred on six dimensions including autonomy, personal growth, and purpose – remains influential and has been operationalised in workplace settings by researchers such as Waddell and Burton. More recently, the PERMA model (Seligman, 2011), extended by Kern and colleagues into PERMA+H (adding physical health), has attracted organisational adoption due to its measurability and applicability to workplace interventions (Forgeard et al., 2021).
The Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model (Bakker and Demerouti, 2017) provides a dual-process explanation of wellbeing outcomes. It posits that job demands deplete cognitive and emotional resources leading to strain, while job resources – including autonomy, feedback, and social support – buffer this depletion and foster engagement. Longitudinal studies have validated JD-R across diverse sectors (Schaufeli, 2021), rendering it one of the most empirically robust models in occupational psychology.
Conservation of Resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 1989; updated by Hobfoll et al., 2018) complements JD-R by emphasising that employees strive to retain, protect, and accumulate resources. When resource loss threatens occur – such as during organisational restructuring – wellbeing deteriorates rapidly, whereas resource gain spirals can generate resilience. COR is particularly pertinent in post-pandemic analyses where sudden, large-scale resource loss (job security, social contact, routine) was experienced simultaneously by entire workforces.
A critical perspective notes that many dominant theories are rooted in positive psychology and may understate the structural determinants of poor wellbeing – including precarious employment, discrimination, and power asymmetries. Critical HRM scholars (Bolton and Laaser, 2023) argue that wellbeing discourses can individualise systemic problems, deflecting attention from employer obligations. This tension is addressed further in AC 4.2.
