Well-being and HRM in the changing workplace

In a fast changing and fast-paced global workplace, where maintaining competitive advantage is paramount to success, identifying ways of sustaining employee well-being is of increasing importance to a range of stakeholders, both within the context of work and beyond. Within the workplace, well-being is important not only to individual employees in terms of maintaining their own good health, but also to managers and organisations as there is evidence to suggest that poor well-being at work can have adverse effects on performance and overall productivity. Beyond the workplace, health service providers must manage the potential burden of poor individual and population health, exacerbated in many nations by ageing workforces. Given the existing evidence linking employee well-being to key organisational outcomes such as performance and productivity, identifying ways to enhance employee well-being is, arguably, a core function of contemporary human resource professionals. However, the juxtaposition of an increased focus on well-being at work and the current business climate of needing to do more with less can pose significant challenges for HRM professionals in contemporary organisations. In this paper we examine some of the key issues of pertinence to researchers in the field of HRM and well-being, and propose a number of areas for future research.