Innovative Interventions to improve employee well-being and performance (PDF)

Although research on stress and well-being at work has made significant progress in recent decades, countries all over the world continue to see a rise in psychological and physical health problems in the workplace. The rising incidence of mental illness and psychological problems in the workplace has been identified as the primary cause of sickness absence. Conversely, meta-analytic studies have shown that overall psychological health is positively related to self and supervisor or peer rated job performance. As such, organizations and governments are looking for evidence-based ways to prevent and address the occurrence of ill-health and to promote well-being and performance in organizational contexts. Thus far, however, compelling research evidence informing practical, innovative and effective ways to help organizations intervene remains somewhat elusive.The special issue aimed to add to the research evidence by publishing rigorous evaluation studies of innovative organizational interventions to improve the well-being and performance of people at work. Our call for papers sought (i) evaluation studies of single interventions which are strong on methodological design and are situated in a sound theoretical or thematic base (ii) meta-analytical studies which offer significant new insights (iii) studies which link both health and performance outcomes, and (iv) studies that clearly articulate how the interventions described were conducted.