Why Workplace Wellbeing Matters: The Science Behind Employee Happiness and Organizational Performance

The definitive account of workplace wellbeing and its key drivers, offering a fresh, data-driven perspective on the connections between happiness, productivity, and organizational success.

Most of us spend a third of our waking lives at work. Work shapes our schedules, relationships, identities, and economies--but is it actually making us happy? This crucial question is explored in depth by leading Oxford researchers Jan-Emmanuel De Neve and George Ward, who provide the richest, most comprehensive picture of workplace wellbeing yet.

In Why Workplace Wellbeing Matters, the authors clarify what workplace wellbeing is (and is not) and offer a framework for how businesses can approach and improve it. Drawing on extensive large-scale data--including the world’s largest data set on employee wellbeing, gathered in partnership with the jobs platform Indeed--the book reveals the remarkable ways in which wellbeing at work varies across workers, occupations, companies, and industries.

The authors present new, evidence-based insights into the origins of workplace wellbeing and how businesses can enhance the employee experience. Integrating work from multiple academic disciplines, they show that workplace wellbeing encompasses both how we think about our work as a whole and how we feel while doing it. Their research demonstrates that improving wellbeing can boost productivity, aid in talent retention and recruitment, and ultimately improve financial performance.

With in-depth analysis and keen insight, De Neve and Ward debunk myths and test assumptions amid an often confusing cacophony of voices on wellbeing at work. Why Workplace Wellbeing Matters provides a firm foundation and indispensable resource for leaders seeking to shape the future of work.

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve is Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science at the University of Oxford, where he also directs the Well-Being Research Centre. His research has been published in top academic journals, including Science, Nature, the Review of Economics and Statistics, Psychological Science, Management Science, Journal of Political Economy, and the British Medical Journal. His research was selected among ＂The Management Ideas That Mattered Most＂ by Harvard Business Review. He is the coauthor, with Richard Layard, of the main textbook on wellbeing science and an editor of the World Happiness Report.

George Ward is a Junior Research Fellow in Economics at Somerville College, University of Oxford. He completed his PhD at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. His work has been published in leading academic journals, such as Management Science, the Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, American Psychologist, Harvard Business Review, and the American Journal of Political Science. He is a coauthor of the book The Origins of Happiness: The Science of Well-Being over the Life Course.