Dr. George Ward is the Persol Research Fellow at the Wellbeing Research Centre and a Junior Research Fellow at Somerville College, University of Oxford. His research focuses on various markers of employee wellbeing such as happiness, satisfaction, stress, and purpose. He studies how these aspects of workplace wellbeing are influenced, for better or worse, by different management and organizational practices – as well as how they ultimately affect outcomes for firms like productivity, turnover, and recruitment. George is particularly interested in the future of work and in how we might design jobs that work for people’s wellbeing.
George’s work has been accepted or published in various academic journals including Management Science, the Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and American Journal of Political Science. He is also passionate about science communication and public engagement, and have written about his research for various outlets including Harvard Business Review, VoxEU, The Conversation, SPSP Character & Context, The Hill, and UN World Happiness Report. His research has also been featured by news outlets including The Economist, Financial Times, BBC, CNN, The Atlantic, Business Insider, Newsweek, and The Guardian.
The Persol Research Fellowship is supported by Persol Holdings Co, Ltd.