Growing Well Being at Work with the Well Being Tree

Introduction: Wellbeing at work remains important. Poor well-being of workers results in costs for society and for workplaces, due to increased sick leave and presenteeism. Even, or maybe especially in difficult economic times, and with an aging workforce, working on sustainable productivity by working on employees wellbeing at work matters.
Methods: A Delphi exercise among wellbeing experts from across Europe was undertaken to define wellbeing, and wellbeing drivers. Through structured discussions with these experts a model of wellbeing is developed: The Wellbeing Tree. In the Wellbeing Tree wellbeing contributors, or ‘antecedents’ are portrayed as the roots system, grouped by roots into individual, job environment, organizational and societal influences. Consequences or outcomes can be grouped by branches in the same way, with specific outcomes denoted as ’fruits’. The impact of environmental (job, organization and societal) conditions upon wellbeing can be communicated through the tree. Investments in wellbeing can be represented as generating a large fruit yield. Economic austerity and hard times can conveyed through less tree growth and less fruit yield where no attempt is made to protect staff wellbeing. Case studies and research activities will be plotted on the tree and linked to the ‘roots’ and the ‘fruits’ that are covered in the studies. At the Wellbeing at Work conference in 2012, the abstracts of participants were plotted into the tree as well. The same will be done at the conference in 2014.

Results: At the conference we will present one of the two interactive wellbeing trees. Both tree versions are separated into two levels. The first level explains the purpose of the tree, the second level provides labels. Labels are revealed by dragging the mouse over the tree to open up ‘pop up text boxes’. We will also present the first link with case studies. Finally the abstracts of this year’s conference will be plotted into the tree. Differences and overlap with the abstracts of the conference two years ago will be presented.

Discussion: Although wellbeing at work is important, for employers there are still barriers to start programs to improve wellbeing of their employees. Lack of knowledge on wellbeing, on the determinants of wellbeing is one of these barriers. With the Employer version of the Well-being Tree we not only aim to increase the knowledge of employers, but also to present them with case studies of interventions that are implemented in organizations throughout Europe. By plotting the abstracts into the tree, it will be clear what the focus is of research activities and where gaps still needs to be filled.