title: Overall well-being as a predictor of health care, productivity, and retention outcomes in a large employer.
abstract: Employers struggle with the high cost of health care, lost productivity, and turnover in their workforce. The present study aims to understand the association between overall well-being and these employer outcomes. In a sample of 11,700 employees who took the Well-being Assessment, the authors used multivariate linear and logistic regression to investigate overall well-being as a predictor of health care outcomes (total health care expenditure, emergency room visits, hospitalizations), productivity outcomes (unscheduled absence, short-term disability leave, presenteeism, job performance ratings), and retention outcomes (intention to stay, voluntary turnover, involuntary turnover). Testing this hypothesis both cross-sectionally and longitudinally, the authors investigated the association between baseline well-being and these outcomes in the following year, and the relationship between change in overall well-being and change in these outcomes over 1 year. The results demonstrated that baseline overall well-being was a significant predictor of all outcomes in the following year when holding baseline employee characteristics constant. Change in overall well-being over 1 year also was significantly associated with the change in employer outcomes, with the exception that the relationship to change in manager-rated job performance was marginally significant. The relationships between overall well-being and outcomes suggest that implementing a well-being improvement solution could have a significant bottom and top line impact on business performance.
authors.affiliation: Healthways, Inc., Center for Health Research , Franklin, Tennessee.
authors.forename: Lindsay E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Sears
authors.forename: Yuyan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: Carter R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Coberley
authors.forename: James E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Pope
mesh_terms: D000041:Absenteeism; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D006264:Health Benefit Plans, Employee; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D010558:Personnel Loyalty; D014481:United States