Assessing the Effectiveness of a Holistic Semi-tailormade Well-being Intervention at Work: Study Protocol of a Partially Randomized Preference Trial Design

Background

Since there's a high prevalence of people with work-related mental health problems and chronic diseases, the literature used to mainly focus on the negative impact on the well-being of individuals and the consequences for the organizations and how to prevent this.

The last decades, developing methods for preventing health problems has been recognized as crucial and should be high on the agenda of workplace health promotion programs. The introduction of a positive psychology approach to well-being highlights not only the prevention of health problems but especially creating a healthy organization with an environment that can promote employee health and safety as well as organizational effectiveness by enhancing individual and organizational resources .

Organizations are becoming increasingly aware that employees are an important factor in gaining and maintaining competitive advantage . Therefore, literature has seen a growth on research on constructs such as engagement or flow, thriving at work, flourishing at work, meaning at work, and purpose in life or personal growth. Engagement has become one of the most significant concepts in the management field in recent years. It yields positive outcomes such as high levels of well-being and performance . Individuals who are engaged in their work have higher levels of energy, are enthusiastic about their work, and are completely immersed in their work activities. Furthermore, well-being at work is not only crucial for the well-being of the individual employee but it also has positive consequences for the organization, such as better work performance, higher levels of employee creativity and engagement. It has also been associated with lower rates of absenteeism at work.

With most adults spending around half of their waking hours at work, the workplace is an important setting to promote health and well-being. Multiple studies, systematic reviews and meta-analyzes have shown that workplace interventions may result in positive effects. Therefore, it is very important to address and enhance determinants of workplace-related well-being. Interventions that enhance well-being can take place on both the individual level and the organizational level. On the individual level, well-being and health can be improved by different intervention domains. Firstly, physical activity can improve a healthy lifestyle and well-being. Secondly, psychosocial interventions, such as engagement interventions, resilience training or burnout preventions increase mental health and well-being. Lastly, ergonomic interventions, such as sitting behavior has an impact on health . For employees who attended well-being interventions, the number of absence days due to stress, anxiety and depression had fallen over the following three years. In addition, they reported improvements in their relationships, improvements in sleep patterns and improvements in happiness when at work. On the organizational level, workplace well-being programs are expected to reduce employee healthcare costs, increase productivity, and provide a positive return on investment. However, today, empirical evidence for organizational interventions remains limited and the effectiveness of organizational level workplace interventions has not been fully examined. Furthermore, only a small number of studies have thus far examined organizational interventions or activities as potential antecedents of engagement.