Wellbeing and Productivity: can you have it all?

This PrOPEL Hub research showcase video offers insight into six years of ESRC-funded work on workplace wellbeing and productivity at the University of East Anglia and RAND Europe. Our speakers discuss selected research findings and how they are creating an evidence-based online wellbeing toolkit, which will be available to employers and managers on the PrOPEL Hub website in 2022.

Since 2015, Professor Kevin Daniels has led a team focussed on Work and Learning, funded by the ESRC to look at workplace wellbeing and productivity. Drawing on findings from quantitative, qualitative and case research studies, the team have produced insight into what employers can do if they want to have it all: good employee wellbeing alongside improved performance and productivity.

In this video, the team share the latest findings from their research which highlights the importance of good management, dialogue, safety net provision and authenticity. They also offer insights into the business case for different types of employee wellbeing interventions.

For more from our speakers, click on the links below:


Practices and Combinations of Practices for Health and Wellbeing at Work

https://propelhub.org/practices-and-combinations-of-practices-for-health-and-wellbeing/

The Good Jobs Project

About the speakers

Professor Kevin Daniels is an occupational psychologist at Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia and was project lead for the Work and Learning Stream of the What Works Centre for Wellbeing (2015 – 2021). For over the past twenty years, he has led projects on workplace wellbeing, including those in safety critical environments, funded by the Health and Safety Executive and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council amongst others. A Fellow of the British Psychological Society, Academy of Social Sciences and Royal Society of Arts, he is also a member of the British Standards Institute HS1 committee focused on workplace health and safety and the British Psychological Society’s Workplace Health and Wellbeing group.

Professor Sara Connolly is Professor of Personnel Economics in Norwich Business School at UEA. Her research interests are in gender and the labour market. She was part of the What Works Wellbeing Evidence Programme for Work and Wellbeing and is now a part of the team at UEA working with RAND Europe exploring ‘Practices and Combinations of Practices for Health and Wellbeing at Work’.

Dr Helen Fitzhugh of Norwich Business School, UEA is passionate about making organisations better for the people who work in them. As well as being a researcher with the UEA team, she gathers the best academic evidence she can find on workplace wellbeing and productivity and distils it down into practical information and resources for knowledge exchange. Helen has worked across the public, private and voluntary sectors, so brings with her an understanding of how to adapt complex research findings so that they make sense to real life workers and managers in a variety of different settings.

Will Phillips (he/him) is an analyst at RAND Europe working in the area of health and wellbeing research. His work has spanned a range of topics including transport, education and health and wellbeing. His primary research interest is in mental health and workpace wellbeing research. He has also developed expertise in methodologies including literature reviews, interview and workshop facilitation, future scenarios, discrete choice modelling and wider econometric methods.