Imagine a workplace that has various mental well-being programmes. Now imagine being an employee, giving those programmes a try – and realising that your well-being has hardly changed.
That’s apparently the reality for many in the UK, according to a study published by the University of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre in 2024. It is believed to be the largest of its kind, involving more than 46,000 workers from over 200 organisations there.
But how should business go about this? Mindfulness training? Stress management? No, says Dr William Fleming from Oxford University: volunteering.
Fleming’s research, based on nearly 50,000 workers, found that volunteering is the only workplace intervention that improves wellbeing at an individual level.
Professor De Neve added that while the report itself does not hypothesize on why youth life satisfaction is declining so rapidly in the U.S, there are many theories as to why this is occurring.
He said youth life satisfaction is usually linked to life expectations. Countries such as Lithuania and Serbia which have some of the highest youth happiness in the world, also have a youth population experiencing more optimism for the future than their parents.
American youth, on the other hand, are experiencing an increase in the cost of education, fears around the labor market, and a rise in isolation and loneliness.
In the US almost half of employers offer or plan to offer volunteer leave, allowing employees to spend a few days annually working for a good cause on company time, according to the consultants WTW. In the UK 70 per cent do. Yet only around 15 per cent of workers are thought to use their volunteering leave, according to William Fleming, research fellow at the University of Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre.
Recently, Lithuania topped the World Happiness Report ranking for under 30s, with the country’s young people rating themselves 7.76 out of 10 on the happiness scale. I completely understand why, especially as a young person living in Vilnius.
A new California Assembly committee is exploring the reasons why some people are happier with their lives than others. Headed by former Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood), the Select Committee on Happiness and Public Policy Outcomes has had two hearings this year.
“We don’t take happiness seriously,” Rendon said. “We think of happiness as some frivolous, silly thing but it’s really the only thing that matters.”
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“This is an area where California and the United States are very, very far behind the rest of the world at looking at this issue.”
The moment has come when leaders must stop pretending we care about engagement. Let’s quit asking workers to fill out surveys that everyone knows are insincere, “check-the-box” activities. Instead, leaders should start dedicating resources to not only measuring employee well-being, but actually committing to improving employee well-being.
Research suggests that employee well-being matters more to the success of a business than employee engagement. For instance, Oxford University researchers have determined that how people feel at work is the biggest driver of employee productivity. Consequently, focusing on improving employee well-being will lead to a massive win for employers and employees alike.
Every area of policy has implications for our wellbeing, so it’s vital that whoever ends up in No10 considers every single policy decision through a wellbeing lens to ensure a healthier, happier, fairer society.
After all, wellbeing is a science: it can be measured, and improved.
But although the ONS (Office for National Statistics) has been tracking life satisfaction – the most reliable measure of population wellbeing – since 2011, these efforts have not been matched by effective actions to address declining trends.
With the general election just a few days away and the past few couple of weeks’ news being dominated by the launch of the party manifestos, I’ve been keeping a keen eye on the content of the manifestos but I’ve been disappointed. There has been a notable absence in the priorities of those vying for Number 10: wellbeing.
Wellbeing is a bit of a misunderstood term, often overlooked in discussions about what truly matters to people’s everyday lives. But let’s get one thing straight: wellbeing is not a luxury. It’s a basic human right that permeates every single issue at this general election and our politicians must sit up and take notice.
Given that work takes up a major part of many adults’ lives prior to retirement, we can assume that management approaches in these nations contribute to their citizens’ happiness.
So, what can leaders learn from the world’s happiest countries?