The Evolution of Workforce Well-Being

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When I finished my Masters at London School of Economics and entered the workforce as a journalist in London during the 2008 financial crisis, I have to say I was not hearing any discussion of this topic. And I'd love to know from your perspective, how has corporate understanding of or focus on worker well-being changed over time? It has changed quite a bit. I mean, it's always been present, although admittedly, it's been mostly about bacuniary incentives and quite transactional,. So I think the non-bacuniary elements of work have come to the fore gradually. That being said, I think everybody came on board during the pandemic.

In this episode of the ESG Insider podcast, we’re exploring the business case for happiness — specifically, how companies can measure and manage employee wellbeing.

We speak to Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Professor of Behavioural Science and Economics at Saïd Business School and a Fellow of Harris Manchester College at the University of Oxford. He is also Director of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre, and co-editor of the World Happiness Report. And he’s a co-founder of the World Wellbeing Movement, a coalition of stakeholders from business, civil society and academia aiming to put wellbeing at the heart of decision-making.

Jan talks to us about his research, including a new study making headlines that explores workplace wellbeing and firm performance. He explains that measuring worker wellbeing can be challenging because it involves the way people feel, and senior leaders are often hesitant to take action on subjective indicators.

"What's so nice about the studies we've done is that we showed these subjective indicators — how people feel at work — that there's real objective consequences or objective correlations to very highly objective data, including the financial performance of companies,” Jan tells us.

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