Evidence for link between Psychological Well-being and Productivity

There is a large amount of evidence from the academic research to support the idea that if organisations nurture psychological well-being (PWB) in their workforce it will bring tangible bottom-line benefits.

At the Individual Level

Research has established that PWB is directly correlated with performance (Wright and Cropanzano, 2004) – so people with higher levels of PWB will perform better than those with lower PWB.

In addition, researchers have shown that people with lower levels of PWB are more likely to see neutral or ambiguous events as threatening (Seidlitz and Diener,1993; Seidlitz et al., 1997) this kind if reaction can cause problems in an organisational setting where change is taking place. Further evidence shows that negative feedback is seen as more hurtful by people with lower PWB and positive feedback produces fewer benefits for them. People with lower PWB also use more contentious interpersonal tactics (e.g. Larsen and Ketelar, 1991; Derryberry and Read, 1994).

In terms of productivity, as well as the above research Donald et al., (2005) found that almost 25% of the variance in reported levels of productivity was predicted by PWB.