A practical method of predicting wellbeing at work: the Wellbeing Process Tool

Abstract

Research has shown that short measuring instruments (e.g. the Wellbeing Process Questionnaire -WPQ) can provide information about aspects of wellbeing. These measures have been shown to have good validity and reliability and can be used to assess multi-dimensional models (e.g. the Demands-Resources-Individual Effects model -DRIVE). The present article describes the practical application of the approach.Keywords: Wellbeing; Wellbeing Process Questionnaire; THE WELLBEING PROCESS QUESTIONNAIRERecent research has provided evidence of the ability for single-item measures to provide reasonably valid and reliable measures of well-being related constructs (Williams & Smith, 2012;Williams & Smith, 2013;Williams, 2015;Galvin & Smith, 2015;Williams & Smith, 2016;Nelson & Smith, 2016;Fan & Smith, 2017a;Fan & Smith, 2017b;Williams, Pendlebury, Thomas & Smith, 2017;Smith & Smith, 2017c) and for the combination of predictor measures to predict variance in well-being outcomes (Mark & Smith, 2008;Mark & Smith, 2012a;Mark & Smith, 2012b;Smith, Wadsworth, Chaplin, Allen & Mark, 2009;Capasso, Zurlo & Smith, 2016). The result was a set of measures that could be combined together to potentially provide a multi-dimensional measure of well-being and factors that could be contributing to well-being outcomes, however the exact nature of how these would be implemented in practice has not been directly established.The current paper is, therefore, dedicated to summarising how these findings can be translated into practical measurements that could be used by organisations that provide online and telephone based support. Many of the clients of these support services have issues relating to psychological well-being, for example work-related stress, and the online resources provide well-being assessment tools which assess areas of well-being such as work and finances (for example, 'I'm worried about paying my bills each month and I'm starting to get into debt'). The findings from the earlier empirical research were used to develop a well-being measure to meet their needs, providing an opportunity to examine whether the findings can translate into practical use.

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