The Measurement of Employee Well-being: Development and Validation of a Scale

 Global Business Review

Today’s business world is much more complex, interlinked and unpredictable than before. Globalization has brought in heavy competition in the international market through creating an environment of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. In recent years, the service industry in India has propelled the economy forward. It contributes approximately 61 per cent to India’s GDP, with a growth of 10 per cent year on year in 2015–2016. This sector basically includes the information technology (IT) industry, research and development, finance, banking, insurance, non-financial business and outsourcing. According to the recent report of Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) (2017), the service sector marks an enhanced foreign direct investment (FDI) equity inflow. India enjoys greater advantages over other countries because of its abundant young and educated talent base, accentuated by an addition of over 3.5 million new talent every year. Almost 50 per cent of India’s current account deficit is being addressed through the revenues generated from the export of services. Apart from the financial gains, this sector has also developed to become the largest employer with approximately 2.8 million professionals (National Association of Software and Services Company [NASSCOM], 2011–2012).

The service industry is both a knowledge- and service-oriented industry. It requires a flexible approach, round-the-clock work schedules and out-of-the-box thinking for people to be successful. Such conditions generate highly demanding, flexible, productive, multitasker and stressful work roles. The service industry professionals often suffer from job burnout due to emotional exhaustion. To add to the misery, the rapid change in the technology has ensured that skills are becoming obsolete at a faster pace. To cope with these changes, employees have to burn their midnight oil to keep track of all the changes around and be competitive. A recent study also reveals that employee well-being is positively related to internal branding of an organization and organizational effectiveness (Raj, 2008). Hence, there is a greater need to understand and explore the phenomenon of employee well-being in a more comprehensive way in today’s organizations.

Dual earning families have become a commonplace, and these have given birth to a new set of challenges to manage the work-life balance. Such situations have created multiple issues and troubles at workplaces such as employee separation for health-related issues, severe job stress and mental disorders Organizations are becoming aware that to retain their best talent and work in collaboration with them, they need to focus on how people are adapting to change and increasing pressure Organizations are also realizing that they need to expand their focus to look at aspects such as identity, meaning, purpose, self-expression and creative outputs. Employee well-being works as a panacea for all these problems.

The influence of employees’ well-being on work has been a central focus of current research in organizational studies in their study indicate that employee well-being has gradually been given more importance in the business agenda as more employers have started to realize the benefits of bringing into effect the policies related to employee welfare and health. Some of the policies incorporated by policymakers for resolving employee’s health problems are good service practice, work-life balance strategies, employee assistance programmes, restoration strategies and different training policies It has also become important for employers to understand the problems of their employees by looking into their well-being through maintaining a balance between the mutual expectations of both employees and employers. In this regard, the present study attempts to both expand the understanding on the structural dimensions of employee well-being and develop a comprehensive scale to objectively measure the phenomena of employee well-being. The present study has three parts: the first part covers the analysis of literature and importance of employee well-being scale development, whereas the second part gives a clear idea of the scale development process, regarding all the empirical analyses of scale establishment and validation. The last part of the study covers the conclusion portion with a discussion of the study findings, implications and limitations of the study.

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