Improving experiences at work through the Wellbeing Lab

 

Organisations are paying more attention than ever to employee wellbeing, and rightfully so. There is increasing pressure for employers to act to improve mental health, reduce burnout, and support employees’ wellbeing. This is especially important as the boundaries between people’s work and personal life have blurred, and many struggle to disconnect. Employers and managers must act.

MoreThanNow’s Wellbeing Lab uses behavioural science to discover the most effective ways to improve wellbeing in the workplace. We are proud to do this in association with the World Wellbeing Movement and with Professors Laura Giurge and Christian Krekel from LSE, and Professor Jan-Emmanuel de Neve from the University of Oxford.

“Without a doubt, one of the most pressing issues that organizations face today is how to support the wellbeing of their workforce. Wellbeing is a necessary element for organizational success, and it shouldn’t be a guessing matter. All wellbeing decisions should be driven by rigorous scientific evidence”

— Professor Laura Giurge, LSE

the research topics

Wellbeing is essential to employees and to organisations, but how to foster this effectively is still a guessing game, often driven by intuition and trends. The Wellbeing Lab aims to replace intuition with data to find out what really helps support employee wellbeing as the world of work is changing. We have broken wellbeing down into a few specific areas of research:

Work-life balance

  • How can regular check-ins help team members hold each other accountable for how they spend their time?

  • How can work-life balance be encouraged to newcomers? Does it differ when onboarding is done virtually versus in-person?

The role of leaders

  • Do leader-led conversations about mental health and wellbeing help employees speak up about their own challenges?

  • How can leaders maximise the ability of employees to take, and enjoy, their time off?

Access to resources

  • How should leaders best communicate wellbeing programmes to encourage uptake?

  • How does emphasising the benefits of wellbeing programs for one’s colleagues (versus one’s self) encourage the uptake of such initiatives?

“We want to deconstruct ‘wellbeing’ to identify priority actions for employers. What are the concrete behaviours that will realise wellbeing at work?”

— Katryn Wright, Behavioural Science Lead

the team

MoreThanNow is working in association with the World Wellbeing Movement, co-located alongside the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, and pioneering academics in the field. The World Wellbeing Movement is a coalition of business leaders, policy makers and academic experts dedicated to putting wellbeing at the forefront of decision-making both in business, and public policy.

 

Laura Giurge is an Assistant Professor of behavioural science at the London School of Economics who aims to make the workplace better for all through her research. One of her recent experimental studies discovered the phenomenon of the email urgency bias and the negative impact it can have on employee wellbeing; she summarized the findings from this research in the Wall Street Journal. Much of her work centres around the topic of time and work-life balance, such as this HBR piece.  

 

Jan-Emmanuel de Neve is a Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford where he is also the director of the Wellbeing Centre. Not only that, he is also closely involved with the World Happiness Report and his research has been published in many of the leading journals such as Nature, Journal of Political Economy, Psychological Science and Science.

 

Christian Krekel is also an Assistant Professor in Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics and part of the Wellbeing centre. Trained as an applied economist, he is also a research affiliate for the Centre for Economic Performance and has worked with organisations like the World Bank and OECD. His research has mainly explored the effects of policy and the environment on people’s wellbeing, such as this RCT exploring how to raise wellbeing.


The approach

MoreThanNow are pioneers of experimental research in large organisations like BT, Ericsson, Novartis, and Microsoft. We draw on a method of evaluation called the randomised controlled trial (RCT). We swear by this methodology as it allows us to design and test interventions to support large organisations with their wellbeing efforts whilst simultaneously share scientific knowledge with the world.

“We all want wellbeing interventions to work. But

without researching their impact an organisation could just be wasting time and effort. Conducting an experiment is the only way to understand the effect you’re having on your employees.”

— Guusje Lindemann, Behavioural Science Associate

Together with the World Wellbeing Movement and leading academics at the LSE and University of Oxford we want to bridge the gap between academic research and organisations and help build evidence-based workplace environments that enable all individuals to achieve their professional potential.

Do you share our passion for improving workplace wellbeing? Click below to learn more about how you can get involved.

 
Guusje Lindemann