Comparison of the Utility of Two Assessments for Explaining and Predicting Productivity Change

OBJECTIVE: To compare utility of employee well-being to health risk assessment (HRA) as predictors of productivity change. METHODS: Panel data from 2189 employees who completed surveys 2 years apart were used in hierarchical models comparing the influence of well-being and health risk on longitudinal changes in presenteeism and job performance. Absenteeism change was evaluated in a nonexempt subsample. RESULTS: Change in well-being was the most significant independent predictor of productivity change across all three measures. Comparing hierarchical models, well-being models performed significantly better than HRA models. The HRA added no incremental explanatory power over well-being in combined models. Alone, nonphysical health well-being components outperformed the HRA for all productivity measures. CONCLUSIONS: Well-being offers a more comprehensive measure of factors that influence productivity and can be considered preferential to HRA in understanding and addressing suboptimal productivity.