Why workforce sustainability has become a board-level financial metric

World Economic Forum

In Spring 2023, Oxford University’s Jan-Emmanuel De Neve and colleagues demonstrated that companies whose employees have strong well-being have higher financial and stock performance. More importantly, they showed that employee well-being levels predict financial and stock performance six and twelve months ahead. This study spanned 1,600 publicly traded companies and data from 15 million employees. For the first time, we can say with scientific confidence that workforce sustainability predicts financial performance and the stock market’s willingness to value that performance highly.