Examining Employee Preferences for Workplace Wellbeing Intervention Designs

Type of content
Theses / Dissertations
Publisher's DOI/URI
Thesis discipline
Psychology
Degree name
Master of Science
Publisher
University of Canterbury
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Language
English
Date
2019
Authors
McLeod, Elise
Abstract

It is widely recognised that optimising the health and wellbeing of employees has benefits at both the individual and organisational level, yet wellbeing interventions often have disappointing participation levels. Employee perceptions of interventions are understood to impact participation levels. The purpose of the current study was to explore employee perceptions of four types of wellbeing interventions, which differed from each other with regard to who leads the intervention (employee vs organisation) and if it is related to, or independent from, the work itself. 92 individuals in full-time employment in New Zealand participated in an online survey, where they rated vignettes outlining different interventions along the following evaluation criteria: intention to participate, sustained participation intention, perceived effectiveness to the individual, and perceived effectiveness to the organisation. Participants then rank-ordered the interventions in order of preference. The results show that while participants did not show any clear preference for an intervention type, the work-independent organisation-led intervention was rated significantly less favourably in comparison to the other interventions along all evaluation criteria. Furthermore, most individuals ranked work-independent organisation-led as the least preferred intervention type. These findings suggest that organisation-led work-independent interventions are not perceived as positively as other possible intervention types, which is unfavourable given these are the interventions most often implemented. Though preliminary, the findings may inform practitioners and organisations to select or design wellbeing interventions that promote buy-in and engage employees such that participation rates may increase

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Ngā upoko tukutuku/Māori subject headings
ANZSRC fields of research
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All Rights Reserved